


Fearful with new desire

by Petra



Series: The country of the heart [5]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Other, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:07:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Geno kisses Sidney for the first time, it feels sweet and warm and wonderful, and like it changes the rules of the game. Geno isn't someone he kisses, or someone he's thought about kissing, but now the possibility is right there, he wants to try it again. But it's not that simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fearful with new desire

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to alpha readers [](http://derryderrydown.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**derryderrydown**](http://derryderrydown.dreamwidth.org/), Laura, & [](http://lightgetsin.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**lightgetsin**](http://lightgetsin.dreamwidth.org/), and valiant betas [](http://sage.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**sage**](http://sage.dreamwidth.org/) and [](http://thefourthvine.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://thefourthvine.dreamwidth.org/)**thefourthvine**.
> 
> This story is fiction and bears no deliberate resemblance to anyone's life.

When Geno kisses Sidney for the first time, it feels sweet and warm and wonderful, and like it changes the rules of the game. Geno isn't someone he kisses, or someone he's thought about kissing, but now the possibility is right there, he wants to try it again.

But it's not that simple.

They're watching old games, like they've been doing all the time because there's not a whole lot of things they can do with Sidney's head still healing and Geno's right knee on the faster but still glacially slow mend. There are enough video games in the house to keep them busy for a while, but they're not as engrossing or as productive. Not that reviewing old games is all that productive, exactly, but there's always technique to analyze for when they're better. They're going to be better, sooner or later.

They have to be.

If sometimes when Geno's over Sidney falls asleep with his head on Geno's shoulder, or Geno leans into Sidney's personal space to grab a handful of carrot sticks and doesn't back off very far so they're sitting half on top of each other, or occasionally they both conk out at once and the television keeps chattering to itself until Nathalie or the kids wake them up, it's not a big deal. Or at least he didn't think it was.

He breaks the kiss off as soon as he figures out that's what it is and says, "Um, sorry."

"Oh," Geno says, backing off as fast as he can with his knee still fucked, till they're basically on opposite ends of the couch. "No, I sorry."

"It's okay," Sidney says, even though it's really not, it's much more complicated than that. But the kids are home, even if they're upstairs somewhere, and Mario's on a road trip because he can still do that--because he still has responsibilities, he's still more a part of the team than Sidney is. There's no way Sidney's going to start talking about all the ways it's a mess when any minute Alexa could run in or Austin might ask if they can play Mario Kart. "I mean. I don't--" He frowns and tries to figure out what the hell he can say without breaking any of the rules. "Give me a second."

"Is all right," Geno says, shaking his head and holding his hands up so he looks as peaceful and safe as a guy his size can manage. "Won't happen again."

"That would be terrible," Sidney says, frowning at him.

"Oh," Geno says again. It's a much better "Oh" this time, not an, "Oh, you're freaking out," but "Oh, you're just being weird." Sidney's heard enough of the second one to be used to it. "You sure?"

Sidney holds up one finger like he would if someone asked him a question while he was in the middle of chewing. "I need to think about it," he says. That's not all he has to do, but if he says he has to talk about it with anyone, Geno will ask questions, totally rational, entirely unanswerable questions.

"Okay," Geno says, and smiles like the doctor said he'd be back in the game tomorrow.

At least it makes sense that Sidney needs to think--starting a relationship with a teammate would be a complicated proposition under the best of circumstances, since they'd have to deal with whether to keep it secret, how to keep it secret, whether anyone gets to know, and how they're going to act like adults if it all goes to hell.

There's a contract in a drawer – the drawer has three keys, and Sidney's key is kept safe in his nightstand – and the contract touches on these issues and others. Sidney wonders whether he can take it out without making Mario and Nathalie wonder why he'd want to see it. The last thing he wants to do is upset them .

And that's why, when Nathalie comes by his room to say good night and see how his head is doing, Sidney says, "Come in for a minute," and holds her hand when she sits on the edge of his bed. He's too nervous to kiss her, and from the way she looks at him, she knows that, but not why. He starts by saying, "I love you," because all negotiations go better starting from a firm understanding of where all parties stand.

"I love you, too," she says, but she's not smiling. "What's wrong?"

"Does something have to be wrong for me to say that?" Sidney asks, trying to remember whether there's a pattern. Most of the time, it's when they're having sex, or if he's so happy there's nothing better to say.

Nathalie shakes her head, giving him a look that makes him feel younger than he actually is. "In that tone of voice? Yes. Go on."

Sidney doesn't want to have this conversation twice, but he wouldn't want to hear this over the phone if it was him listening, so he doesn't say they should call Mario. "I'm not leaving unless you want me to, and it's never going to happen again if you--either of you--think it's a bad idea, but--Geno kissed me. And it was really--nice."

She sighs and squeezes his hand tightly enough that it starts to hurt. "I was wondering when he'd get around to that."

"What?" Sidney stares at her. He knows her well enough to tell when she's joking, and she's not. She looks like he just told her he dropped something expensive, and she's going to deal with it. "I wasn't--I didn't--I didn't expect any of this. Why did you?"

Nathalie shakes her head. "The way he looks at you, sometimes. It's a little too familiar." 

"Like he wants to kiss you but can't figure out whether you'd like it. He must have decided it was worth a try."

Sidney says, "Whatever happened, I didn't ask him to. Or want him to. Or--" He thinks about all the time they've spent together. Geno has been over more this season than in all the previous ones since he got to Pittsburgh because Gonch isn't around anymore, so he's been there for dinner on nights off, and sometimes for lunch. Since he went on IR, he's been over pretty much every day, hanging out with Sidney for lack of anything better to do, doing his PT exercises and chirping Sidney about staying in shape. It's been great to have someone to talk to who understands how frustrating it is not to be on the ice--Mario understands, of course, but he's busy.

"But it was nice?" Nathalie asks softly. She sounds like it hurts to ask and Sidney wants to take the word back, wants to tell her it was terrible and Geno drooled all over him, and that he never wants to do it again.

He's not going to start lying to them, ever. He's absolutely not going to lie about this. "Yes. And I like spending time with him," Sidney says. "But I wasn't flirting. You know I wasn't flirting. Why would I?"

"You weren't throwing yourself at him shirtless, no." Nathalie runs her thumb over his knuckles. She can't be too mad or she'd let him go, he's sure of that. "You're always kind."

"He's a guest. I'm polite."

"And solicitous."

Sidney shakes his head. "I'm not going to tell the guy with the torn ACL to get himself a glass of water. That would be stupid."

"What was that movie you were watching the other day?"

"I have no idea," Sidney admits. He'd fallen asleep halfway through--reading the subtitles gave him a headache, and he still doesn't know enough Russian to do more than find a bathroom and order a beer--and only woke up when Nathalie brought him a blanket. "He liked it. I wasn't going to argue."

"And he didn't complain when you were drooling on his shoulder."

Sidney can feel his cheeks heating up. One of the important and disgusting lessons he's learned, living with them, is that everybody drools in their sleep, but Geno should've stopped him. "Maybe he didn't notice."

"I could see the spot on his shirt from across the room," Nathalie says, an edge in her voice.

"Ugh. Well--" Sidney makes a face. "That's basically the opposite of flirting, isn't it? If I was trying to get him to kiss me I'd never let myself drool on him. I'd work harder than that by a long shot."

"I know, but--" Nathalie closes her eyes for a long moment and Sidney lets her think. It's hard to be quiet when all he wants to do is prove to her that none of this was his idea in the first place. "I wish Geno was a nice girl, and I'm so selfishly glad he's not."

Sidney frowns. "Why?"

"Because then I'd know what to say." Her voice is rough, and she swallows before she keeps talking. "I'd call Mario, and we'd talk about it, and we'd find a way to tell you that you should date her, because someone who likes you, someone who makes you laugh--that's what you deserve." She bites her lip. "We'd find a way to smile for you. You might have to move out, because--"

"Please don't make me leave." Sidney wants to hug her for all he's worth and hold on tightly enough that she can't tell him to go. He doesn't remind her about the house he technically owns and hasn't visited for weeks. He's been busy recovering, and not even the media seem to remember it's there. He weaves their fingers together instead. "I didn't even kiss him, it was his idea, and I won't do it again. I promise."

"I don't want you to go anywhere. That's not what I meant. If Geno was Gina, though--it would be easier." Nathalie takes another long breath. She sounds like she's going to cry and Sidney feels terrible. "You could be happy with a Gina. Comfortable, with your own house that no one would ask hard questions about. In public, in front of anyone. You could tell your family. Your friends. The whole damn world."

"The whole damn world knows I love you," Sidney says.

She laughs, once, which is more than the line deserves. "You could tell them the whole truth for once. I hate how much you have to hide."

"I wouldn't want to tell the whole world everything even if I could." Sometimes when Sidney's sleeping he sees flashbulbs in his dreams and tries to run from them.

"But your parents," Nathalie says, and adds, because she knows him too well, "your sister."

Sidney winces at the thought. Taylor would be so happy for him if she knew how happy he was. As it is, she's stopped asking him if he's ever going to date anyone. His parents haven't given up on him yet, but they don't bring it up much anymore. "I could tell them now, if you thought it would be all right. It's been years." He hasn't wanted to risk it, but the longer they've been together, the less insane it sounds to tell his family, and the stranger it is that they don't somehow know already.

"I--one conversation at a time, all right?" Nathalie takes out her phone. "Before we get any farther into hypothetical questions--"

"Yes, all right." Sidney braces himself for the conversation the way he prepares for games. It takes Mario a while to get to a place where he can talk uninterrupted, which is a mixed blessing. The longer Sidney has to wait, the more tense he gets, but he doesn't want to say any of it again.

"Hit me," Mario says.

Before Sidney can figure out where to start, Nathalie says, "Geno made his move."

Mario says, "Ah."

"You knew, too?" Sidney sounds confused as hell in his own ears and it can't sound any better over the phone. "You could've said something! I would've asked him to stop coming over so much, or--or whatever you wanted." His throat hurts. "I had no idea."

"I didn't think you did," Mario says, and Sidney feels a little bit better. Whatever Sidney's been doing without knowing it, it can't be that bad. "What do you want to do next?"

"Go back to yesterday, do today over, and sit in the easy chair," Sidney says, and he knows how stupid that sounds. "But--he's--I like him a lot, and I might, I think--I guess we might be good together, maybe, but whatever happens I--" his throat closes up on him hard and he has to fight to finish the thought. "I'd rather never talk to him again off the ice than lose you."

Nathalie says, "Sid--" and hugs him tightly.

Mario makes a choked sound. "Okay," he says, after a few seconds and a couple of coughs. "You don't have to go that far."

"Well, it's true." The thought of losing Geno as a friend makes Sidney's chest hurt, but he's not even going to think about--about the other option. "I can tell him I'm just not interested, if that's what you want. Or that it's too complicated, and that's, well, that's true, isn't it?" Sidney tries to laugh and doesn't quite manage it.

"Can this wait three days?" Mario asks. "I don't want to do this over the phone unless you need some kind of answer right now. I can fly home now if you'd rather."

"No. God, they'd think something was really wrong. I'm not in a hurry," Sidney says, and leans against Nathalie. "I'm not going anywhere unless you make me, and I'll tell him I'm still thinking about it."

Nathalie strokes his hair. "You're not going anywhere, Sid. We'll keep the home fires burning, dear."

"If anything changes," Mario says.

"It won't," Sidney says quickly. "But if I think of anything, if anything happens, I'll tell you. Of course I'll tell you."

"I know you will," Mario says. He doesn't sound sad, which is something. "Anything else I should know about?"

Sidney tries to remember whether anything worth mentioning happened before the world turned upside down. "No?"

"Nothing burned down and no one lost a limb," Nathalie says. "We'll keep you posted. Go look after your team."

Mario is quiet for a few seconds. "I will. Take care of each other."

"Always," Sidney says.

"Everything will be fine," Nathalie says. "Love you."

"I love you, too," Mario says. "Give the kids a hug for me."

"Daily. Good night." Nathalie hangs up the phone.

"Are you sure everything will be fine?" Sidney asks. He knows that Nathalie can't predict the future any more than he can, but she's been through something sort of like this before.

And everything was not fine that time, in the end.

"I'm sure that you'll do everything you can to make it work, and so will I, and so will Mario." Nathalie gives Sidney another squeeze that doesn't make him feel as much better as he'd like. "And so will Geno, if he gets involved. He has a lot invested in this team, and in your friendship."

"More than I thought. I should've noticed before things got serious." Saying it out loud doesn't help, but he feels like Nathalie deserves that much of an apology, at least.

"Would you have tried to stop him?" Nathalie asks.

"Yes," Sidney says, frowning at her. "Of course I would. I don't want--" he shakes his head "--it's not like I'm lonely. It's just--I'd never thought of him like that, and he's--" the only word he can come up with is "nice," and it's not good enough to justify all of the discussions that will have to happen. "I want to kiss him again. But not if it hurts you. Nothing's worth that."

Nathalie says, "That's a good place to start. I should get to bed." She kisses Sidney as lightly as Geno had kissed him, and it feels entirely different. Less exciting, but more like a kiss it's possible to sleep after. He's kissed her every night they've been in the same place for years, and it's strange to pay this much attention to it, as if it's new again. "Good night."

It isn't a good night.

The next day, Sidney's exhausted. Geno texts, _I come over?_

Sidney writes back, _I didn't sleep well. I'd just nap._

The couch feels empty without him, and Sidney feels like he's doing everything wrong. He texts Geno a few hours later with, _Come over tomorrow even if I'm tired?_

Geno writes back, _Yes._

The kids ask where Geno is when they get home, and that's when Sidney wonders what they think is going on, if he's obvious to everyone in the world except himself. "He had other stuff to do." He's sure that Geno found things to do without him. 

"You didn't tell him you were taking your toys and going home, did you?" Stephanie asks. "I mean, the last time he beat you at--"

Sidney rolls his eyes. "No, we didn't fight about a video game. Everything's fine."

Nothing feels fine. He can't quite relax, he can't quite get the energy to do more than he absolutely has to, and every time he turns around he expects to see Geno. The only time he feels like things are normal is when he can steal a few minutes with Nathalie at the end of the day, when the kids are in bed and the house is quiet for the night. "I'm sorry," Sidney says. "But I did miss him. I didn't know how much I was going to until he wasn't here. This is stupid."

Nathalie hugs him, which doesn't help as much as he wants it to. Recovery is terrible, especially the times when he's too tired to do anything he normally would. It's bad enough he's letting the team down, but he lets her down in little ways every day, too, especially when he can't do more than lean against her and sometimes kiss her, when that's not too frustrating. She doesn't complain out loud, but sometimes she sighs and Sidney knows what she's not saying. Last week, he slept through all of Valentine's Day, which was more disappointing for everyone else than it was for him, but not by much. "Thank you for telling us," she says, and she sounds much too sincere for something so obvious.

Sidney frowns. "Of course I told you. How could I not tell you?"

"It's not that difficult. You do lots of things you don't tell us about."

"Only boring things." Sidney tries to remember the last time he did something worth mentioning--something outside the house that wasn't an appointment--and wants to beat his head on the pillow, except that he really can't. "It's not like you do a bunch of things without telling me, do you?" He doesn't realize just how loaded that question is until he says it out loud, and then he wishes he hadn't said it at all.

Nathalie laughs and he feels a little better about it. "Nothing important, no. And never anything as exciting as finding a new boyfriend."

"He's not--he's not that."

"Well, not yet, no." The way she says it, she sounds like that doesn't freak her out as much as it could. "But you'd know."

The thought that they could, or would, find someone else and somehow hide it from him makes Sidney laugh. There are any number of things that bother him in the middle of the night, but that's not one of them. "Of course you'd tell me."

"Yes." Nathalie takes a deep breath. "Of course. And we don't have any plans in that direction."

"Good." Sidney kisses her cheek, which isn't close enough, isn't warm enough, isn't what he wants. "You'd tell me if I was--letting you down somehow, right?"

She smiles at him. He misses the times she smiled at him without looking sad for him. He took them for granted last year. "Yes. Get some sleep, you'll feel better in the morning."

People have been telling him that for months. It's not always true. Tomorrow morning, Geno might be over again, and that could be better. It'll definitely be more complicated, whatever happens. "You, too. Good night."

For the first ten minutes after Geno arrives, Sidney doesn't know where to look or what to do for him. He spends a while making sandwiches because he can do that without actually talking to anyone and it'll still be helpful. Once they're both on the couch, there's a tension that wasn't there two days ago, and it's just--strange.

Geno's not doing anything he wouldn't have done last week, as far as Sidney can tell, except that he's all the way at one end of the couch, and Sidney's at the other. They usually sit close enough to hand things to each other, at least, to save getting up and down. The middle of the couch is like some weird demilitarized zone, except with sex instead of war. "Everything's okay, right?" Sidney asks during a commercial break in the endless sports coverage.

"Yes?" Geno looks like he has to think about the question more than normal. "And you?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Sidney wants to tell him everything and get it over with, but that's not in the contract, and it's not necessarily safe.

Geno knows how to keep a secret, and Sidney would've said he knows better than almost anybody, but it's a big, messy secret.

And Geno kissed him, without mentioning maybe he wanted to, without doing more than--apparently--flirting with Sidney first in ways that weren't even obvious from up close.

"I just have to think about the--" Sidney touches his mouth quickly and doesn't meet Geno's eyes. "I mean, it was nice, but--I don't know."

"Okay," Geno says.

They don't move any closer over the course of the afternoon, which goes from awkward to easier to take when Austin gets home and decides he needs to beat them both at a game before he can do any of his homework. Luckily for Austin, Sidney's distracted by everything he's not allowed to talk about, and either Geno's distracted too or he throws the game a couple of minutes in. "Man, no wonder you're on IR," Austin says. But he knows enough to follow up the chirp by asking, "Can I get you anything?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Sidney says.

"No, thanks," Geno says, and high-fives Austin. "Do homework."

"Yeah, yeah. Better practice your Mario Kart, G."

Sidney isn't as tired as he was the day before, but he's still not focusing very well. It's easier to let himself yawn when Austin is gone and not keeping an eye on him, subtly or otherwise. Geno asks, "I leave?"

"No, it's fine," Sidney says. It's a good five seconds before he remembers why he shouldn't fall asleep around Geno anymore, especially not if that means using him as a pillow. He isn't the best pillow in the world, but he makes up for being bony by giving great scalp massages. Those are off the table, too, or anyway it would be a dick move to ask for one when they're not supposed to touch each other. Sidney sighs.

Geno looks toward the doorway where Austin left, then at Sidney. "Is okay if answer is no."

"I don't know what the answer is yet," Sidney says. At least he's not falling asleep quite as quickly after that remark. He couldn't be. It gives him a better shot of adrenaline than he's had since the last time he got seriously dizzy and panicked. "I need a few more days."

"Days?" Geno asks, then nods with what looks like a lot of effort. "Okay. You have days. Weeks," he adds, but he doesn't sound like he believes himself. 

Sidney has no idea how long it's going to take to discuss things. "Thanks," he says, and reaches across the empty couch cushion to fistbump Geno. At least they can do that without anyone taking it the wrong way.

But when he tells Nathalie, she says, "Tell Geno you have an appointment tomorrow." When Sidney reaches for the notebook where he keeps his schedule she says, "No, you don't really, but if I have to listen to you sighing over each other that much for another day I'm going to feel sorry for both of you instead of just you, Mario, and me."

"We weren't sighing," Sidney says.

"I walked by three times and he wasn't watching TV during any of them. Or the game you three were playing."

Sidney tries to remember whether he noticed Geno being distracted. "Maybe his knee hurts."

"Maybe. Or maybe he's wondering what's going on in your head." Nathalie pats his cheek. "I have much more information than he does and I still don't know."

"I don't know either," Sidney admits. "But I miss him--even when he's here, because he wasn't really being himself today."

Nathalie presses her lips together. "That's certainly a sign."

"Of what?"

She shakes her head. "We don't need any more signs around here. Go to sleep and we'll talk about it tomorrow--but don't forget to tell Geno you're busy all afternoon."

In the end, Sidney is busy, partially because he exercises longer than he's supposed to because he needs to take his mind off of the conversation that's going to happen the next day, and partially because he's trying to figure out how that conversation will go. He doesn't have any good guesses. Half the bad guesses involve Mario telling him there's no way in hell Sidney's going to date Geno because it'll fuck up the team, not to mention everything else. The other half, he tries not to pay any attention to, because they mostly show up while he's trying to think about other things and they're wrong. They're not going to tell him to leave or pretend that they don't care what he does.

That night, he has one of those dreams where he's playing hockey in his underwear in a full game, and everyone thinks it's hysterically funny. Then Geno asks him why he has a bite mark on his neck and demands to know who he's dating.

Sidney wakes up in a cold sweat, his hand plastered to his neck, at 5:21 in the morning, which is too early to get up and too late to get another good dose of sleep. If everything went as planned, the Penguins came back on a red-eye flight after their last game in New York, and Mario's still asleep.

With any luck, he's getting more rest than Sidney is.

Sidney tries to use the time in the dark to figure out what he's going to say if things get complicated, but he can't hold onto his thoughts long enough to be sure what's a good idea and what's not. He used to be able to think things through coherently, planning the right words for the media, and he can't tell whether he's too tired, too injured, or both.

*

Sidney wakes up again at 9:04, well after the kids' breakfast. They're already at school, and he didn't hear a sound, even though his current room is much closer to the kitchen than his normal one. They've been too good about being quiet since he got hurt. Sometimes he wants to wind them up and make them laugh the way they used to, when they weren't afraid of hurting him by being too loud, or too fast, or too rough.

Mario and Nathalie are having coffee in the kitchen. Mario has a computer open on the table, but he can't be getting any work done. He's got a coffee mug in one hand and Nathalie's holding the other. They look like they've been talking and stressing over something, which is probably Sidney's fault. "Good morning," Mario says. He sounds just like he always does.

Sidney says, "Hi," and takes a breath, trying to figure out what comes next. He wants to get all of the hard parts over with first, but that means starting with the sentences that are almost impossible to think, let alone say.

Nathalie says, "Have some breakfast," before he can say anything else.

He's not hungry , and he's nauseated, on top of that, but he knows better than to try something difficult without the right energy reserves if he can handle breakfast. He'd rather have a hug, but they're not moving. "Thanks."

"How did you sleep?" Mario asks, so determinedly normal that Sidney almost answers him on autopilot.

"I kept wanting to see if you were here yet and tell you I'm sorry I made things complicated," Sidney says, skipping the short version and going right for the truth. "Yesterday was weird, the day before was terrible, I don't know what's going on, and I can't have breakfast until I'm done with this. Sorry, Nathalie, but I can't."

"At least sit down," she says, pulling out a chair for him and looking at him sternly until he sits in it. That's easy enough.

"Did something else happen?" Mario asks.

"No. I would've said something." Sidney sighs. "Don't you trust me?" 

They're quiet for much too long before Mario says, "Yes."

Sidney frowns at him, trying to figure out everything he's missing. Sometimes Mario is much too good at saying only what he thinks people want to hear and leaving out the hard parts. "You didn't honestly think I was going to cheat on you. Did you?"

"Not cheat, no," Nathalie says. She's still holding onto Mario's hand and her knuckles are going pale. "I've been expecting you to fall for someone else for, oh, four years now."

It's a good thing Sidney's already sitting down because otherwise he'd be sitting on the floor. "Why? I don't--" he thinks about all the times they've introduced him to people, hundreds, thousands of people maybe. "I'm not looking. I haven't been looking. I don't want anyone else--I mean, I didn't even think about it until the other day."

"Still," Nathalie says quietly.

"Still what?" Sidney stares at her. "Still you expected me to change my mind and, and walk out on you?"

"I kept wondering when you were going to find someone you didn't have to lie about," Nathalie says. "Someone you could introduce to the team and to your family without having to pretend there's nothing happening."

The first, ludicrous argument Sidney comes up with is that they've met his parents and the last thing either of them needs is to be introduced to the team. He knows that's not what she means, but it's not like they have to pretend they don't know each other. "Then you must be really disappointed. I didn't even know Geno liked guys until, well--"

"We didn't—and don't-- want you to leave," Mario says, staring into his coffee cup like there's an answer at the bottom. "But there was always a possibility you'd meet someone who wasn't twice your age, for God's sake, or--even better--someone who wasn't married."

"Then I guess you got what you were waiting for. But I don't want to leave you." Sidney takes a deep breath. "Not unless you ask me to because, because you're tired of me, or you don't love me anymore, or--" He swallows hard and says the thing they're not supposed to mention, ever. "--or you decide to trade me."

Mario swears, sharp words blurring together like Flower's after a shut-out and too many beers, and Nathalie says, "That's not--"

"I know it's not on the table right now." Sidney taps his temple lightly. "Nobody would take me. But--"

"Stop," Mario says, his voice rough, his expression tense the way it only gets when he's trying not to think about the past. "That's not part of the discussion."

"Yes, it is. It always is, even if we don't say it out loud, but if it's off the table now, it's off the table." Sidney spreads his hands. "You thought I was going to just walk away from you? When?"

"It's completely off the table." Mario takes a long breath. "As for you finding someone else, we knew it could happen. How many people try to catch your eye when you're out for the night? Sooner or later, one of them might have been right for you. If they were--if--then we'd have to deal with it."

Sidney rubs his eyes and wishes he was more awake. "You could've said something. I would've told you I wasn't going anywhere."

"We said lots of things," Nathalie says, and she looks like she wants to smile at him but can't make herself. "Every time you met someone, I asked about them and waited for you to say something, but, no, I never thought you were interested in any of them."

"Well, I wasn't. You could've stopped asking."

"And then what?" Nathalie holds up one finger. "You could've decided you wanted someone else when we weren't paying attention. It's harder to be polite about that kind of thing when you're surprised. Or--" She adds another. "--You could've decided that this isn't, this isn't going to work for some reason, but not wanted to tell us because it's easier to let things go on as they are until something else got in the way."

"What?" Sidney stands up and backs away from the table. His hands are shaking. "I would never do that. I can't believe you think I would."

"Good. And I don't think you would, not really, not with all the proof you haven't," Nathalie says. "But you could have. Or you could have--inexplicably--decided that this really is what you want, and all you want, even though there are times when it doesn't work, problems that aren't going to be solved, and things we can't give you."

Sidney can't decide whether he's not awake enough to understand that sentence. He pours himself coffee in case the caffeine helps. "Nothing's perfect. Okay, there are things I can't have with you, but--" He waves his hand, trying to find the rest of the sentence. "But, okay, if I was dating some girl my age, or some guy, or whoever, there would be things we didn't have. I don't care about talking to my parents--besides, they know I care about you, and that's what counts--and I don't need whatever it is you think I'm missing."

They're quiet for a few seconds, looking at each other and communicating wordlessly with the ease that Sidney loves and envies about them. "Your own family," Mario says, quietly, like he's afraid it's going to make Sidney upset.

"Yeah." Sidney nods, thinking of all the time he spends with them, with their kids, sometimes doing important things, mostly just being together, sharing meals, doing homework and housework and all the things that make up a life. "You're right. That's what I don't have enough of in my life, family. You're my family. You couldn't be any more my family if we were all married."

"Yes, but--" Mario says.

Whatever his next argument is, Sidney doesn't want to hear it. "Do people do that?" he asks, trying to remember whether he's ever heard of that kind of arrangement outside of people making jokes about Mormons. "Not in a church, obviously, and not with bridesmaids and stuff. Just the important pieces."

"Um," Mario says. "Oh." 

There's another few moments of silence. Sidney has a sip of his coffee and wonders whether he can deal with breakfast yet, or whether he's going to get upset again. He's looking forward to having his emotions under control, almost as much as everything else that will come with being healthy. Then Nathalie says, "That's an interesting question, especially since you want to start dating someone else."

"Not if it means losing you," Sidney says as quickly as he can. "I said that, and I meant it, and I'm not going to change my mind about that no matter how great things go with Geno, or with anyone else if there's ever anyone else. Whatever I have to do to convince you of that, I'll do it."

Mario shakes his head, frowning, and says, slowly, like it's half a question, "I'm not sure getting married is the answer to that."

Sidney can feel his cheeks heat up in a blush. "Well, obviously, it's not like we could really--"

"Possibly, though, something along those lines, or at least--in the same vein, maybe," Mario says, like he's thinking about it and the more he thinks, the better it sounds. "I kept wondering, the whole way home, if I'd get here and you'd be gone."

"Never," Sidney says, but Mario's still talking.

"I knew it wasn't likely, but things happen. People change their minds." He looks pained again, and there's nothing Sidney can say that will help against whatever he's thinking. Mario's too stuck in his memories to hear him. 

Sidney sets his coffee cup on the counter carefully, focusing on putting it down exactly the right distance from the edge so no one will knock it off by mistake. He's not dizzy, but he can hear his heart pounding in his ears like he's been exercising too hard again. "I need to lie down," he says, and does not let himself yell the way he wants to. "When you remember you're talking to me, instead of to--to someone else who could do this terrible, selfish shit, let me know, and we can start this conversation over."

Neither of them tries to stop him, and he can't decide whether that's good or bad. He goes to his room, argues with himself about whether to lock the door, and considers lying down for all of ten seconds before decides to stretch instead. If he was back to normal, he'd work out to get rid of the anger, but there are risks he can't take. Losing track of time and pushing too hard is one of his worst habits.

Stretching is enough to remind him that his body hasn't completely betrayed him, whatever the rest of the world is doing. The pull in his thighs, his arms, his shoulders, is familiar, and it counteracts the tightness in his chest, bit by bit. If they just trusted him--but they do, in practice. They trust him and they might not always be sure whether that's a good decision, but they haven't stopped him from doing anything.

Including sleeping on Geno day after day when someone should've said something, if only for the sake of Geno's shirts.

That starts the list of stupid things he's done that they didn't try to protect him from. Some of them have been pretty minor--there were some parties where it would have been better, the morning after, if someone had reminded him to be responsible--and some of them have been worse, things he shouldn't have said that hit the media and exploded, injuries he should've rested. The blackout curtains on the windows are good for him, he knows, but he hates needing them.

He's working on his quadriceps for the second time, bracing his fingertips on the dresser. He hates needing the extra help to balance, and he's distracting himself from being annoyed with his head by trying to remember who Nathalie might have thought he was interested in, however vaguely, when there's a tap on the door. "Come in," Sidney says, taking a deep breath and trying to find a calm place in his head. He's going to need it if the next conversation is anything like as hard as the last one.

"Are you feeling better?" Mario asks, opening the door a crack so he's not letting in much of the light from the hallway.

"Mostly. Are you?"

"Yes. Do you mind if I come in?"

Sidney lets his ankle go and opens the door the rest of the way for Mario. "I don't have three chairs in here."

"No, and you still need breakfast." Mario smiles, but it looks automatic, not real. "Come back into the kitchen."

"After you promise me you trust me not to leave you." 

Mario winces, which makes Sidney feel both proud of himself and a little sick for being proud. Being able to hurt someone is nothing to celebrate, no matter how much they deserve the hit, but at the same time, this matters. "It was an irrational fear," Mario says, "and, no, I know you won't. Please?" He holds out his hand to Sidney.

Hugging him doesn't make the ache in Sidney's chest go away completely, but it's a start. 

The kitchen smells like sweet Lebanon bologna and caramelized onions when they get back to it. Sidney knows it's an attempt at comforting him with food, and he would resist it on principle, except his stomach is growling. He might manage to say no to one of Nathalie's omelets someday, but he takes the plate she offers him and says, "Thank you."

"You haven't done anything in the last three years that made me wonder whether you wanted to be here," she says, and gives him a fork, too.

"Three years?" Sidney tries to think of what he'd done three years ago. "What did I do wrong before that?"

"Nothing, in that sense. Sit down. Please." Nathalie brings Sidney's refilled coffee mug to the table. "There was a girl you liked, or--noticed, at least."

If there was, he's forgotten her. "Really?"

"I thought so, at least." Nathalie sits down at the table and Mario joins her. "Then again, I had a guilty conscience at the time."

Sidney looks up at her, astonished. "What did you do?"

"You, sweetheart," she says, and she sounds like she's angry, but not with him. "We took up your time and your energy when you should've been doing anything, or everything, with anyone else. Almost anyone else would've been more appropriate. I thought--then--that you would have been better off if we told you no from the beginning and kept saying it. That you would change your mind and realize you were wasting your time with us."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Sidney reaches across the table and she lets her fingers brush his. It's not as good as a hug, but it helps. "Nathalie," he says helplessly. "When did you change your mind?"

Mario laughs once. "It was a slow process for both of us."

Sidney considers this for another bite of omelet and says the worst interpretation he can think of. "You changed your minds five minutes ago?" 

The way they glance at each other guiltily would tell him the answer even if Mario didn't say, "Twenty? Sometimes it takes a long time to come to the right conclusion."

"But you're there now, right?" Sidney looks at Mario until he nods, then waits for Nathalie, who smiles crookedly and nods, too. "I can't believe you thought I wasn't serious."

"It was a question of how serious you were, and how much we could each trust each other," Mario says. It sounds like an apology.

"Don't take it too personally," Nathalie says dryly. "We didn't get married in the first place until after Lauren was born."

"That was different," Sidney protests.

"Yes," she says, frowning. "Everyone in the world thought we should do that. No one else knows about this, and if they did, none of them would approve."

Sidney frowns at his breakfast. "It wasn't anyone else's business. Neither is this." He looks up at her, trying to find a clue to what he did right so he can do it again if he needs to. "But, okay, how did I change your mind?"

"It was somewhere around the point in the conversation when you changed the subject from how much you wanted to be with someone else and us, to how much you didn't intend to leave," Nathalie says, smiling like she's congratulating him on a game-winning goal.

"I've been saying that for years," Sidney says. "And doing exactly what I said, too."

"Not in so many words," she says.

"How many words do you need it in?" If they're not listening, if they haven't been listening, he doesn't know what else to say or how to show them what he means.

Mario sighs and says, "Don't tease him, dear. Sid--" He closes his eyes like he's not sure he wants to say what he's about to say. "It's about time to renegotiate the personal contract. Let's extend it indefinitely. All right?"

"What kind of terms do you want?" Sidney asks. There's a lump in his throat over the word "indefinitely." He's been off the ice for a month and hasn't gotten significantly better or stronger. It's a good day if he can hold a conversation for more than a few minutes at a time. He's no good to anyone right now. 

And they still want him, for whatever reason.

"We didn't exactly put in a no-move clause, before," Mario says. "I didn't know whether--"

"Yes," Sidney says. "Please. If that's what you need, it's fine, I'll sign it."

Nathalie sighs, smiling at him. "How did you survive five minutes of real negotiations?" she asks.

"It's easy when you're asking for exactly what I want--and I'm not calling my agent for this one."

"God," Mario says, laughing. "Do we need to shake on this one, or is there an outside chance I can get a hug?"

Depending on how hugs are scored, he gets somewhere between one and two at the same time. "I'm sorry you worried at all," Sidney says, leaning against Mario, Nathalie's breath on his cheek, holding them as tightly as he can and feeling like he never wants to let go. If he moves, they might forget everything he's been saying and he'd have to start all over again.

"We were braced, not worried," Nathalie says, and kisses Sidney.

Sidney shivers, feeling the world spin too fast around him, which is not what it's supposed to mean when the earth moves. He wishes he had all his strength--this deserves more than a hug, a handshake, and a kiss--but it's heartening to know that they want him just as much, and that they can wait, will wait until he's better. "I need to sit down," he says, and doesn't let himself apologize when they find him a chair. "But I want to finish what we're talking about."

"It will wait until you can see straight. I'd say tonight, but you look like you should be in bed right after dinner," Mario says.

"And there's a game tomorrow." Sidney frowns. He's exhausted and relieved all at once, enough that it's going to be a long walk to get to his bedroom, but he doesn't want to put it off. "I'll take a nap today, and--tonight, all right?"

"It makes a nice change from a long engagement," Nathalie says, grinning at them both.

"Tonight," Mario agrees. "And then we'll talk about what happens when you want to play for--"

"Oh, stop," Nathalie says, and moves her hands to Sidney's shoulders. "Yes, you're staying, as long as you want to, as long as we can all stand each other, but it would be selfish of us to say you can't do anything with anyone else."

Sidney has to close his eyes and cover her hands with his because he can't look at her face and say what he's thinking. "I can tell him I decided I can't. He'd understand--well, he wouldn't understand exactly why, but there are plenty of reasons."

"If it's what you want, it's worth a try," Nathalie says. She takes another deep breath. "And if you meet someone else--"

"Do we have to do this now?" Sidney asks.

"Yes. If you meet someone and you want to start a family with them, if you want kids, you're going to need a place where they're comfortable."

Sidney doesn't ask Mario to save him from this conversation, please, because that would be wimping out. He feels like he should have some image as clear as Nathalie's of this future she can see for him. There are plenty of beautiful women in the world, but he doesn't know many who are as supportive as she is. Dealing with the game schedule is a lot to ask of anyone, and raising kids is a hell of a commitment to imagine with someone he hasn't met yet. But he's not going to argue with her about what could possibly happen. Maybe tomorrow he'll meet the girl of his dreams, whoever that is. "Okay," he says. "But is it all right if I start looking down the street? I mean, I'm not using the house I have in town anyway and--"

It's kind of hard to breathe, in a good way, when Nathalie's kneeling by his chair, hugging him tightly, and Mario's squeezing his shoulder hard enough to hurt. "It doesn't matter where you live," Mario says. "But--yes. Do that. That's a good idea."

"Please," Nathalie says, grinning at him. "The closer, the better."

Sidney wishes he could talk them into going to bed in the middle of the morning and being as rough with him as he'd like. Instead of saying something flirty like he wants to, he finds himself yawning. "Sorry," he says. "I'm falling asleep. I'd better take that nap."

"Would you like company?" Mario asks. "I set aside this morning for this discussion."

It's been weeks since he's slept with either of them for more than half an hour or so. "That would be great, sure, but it's just a double bed."

"We'll make it work. Can you get up yet?" Nathalie asks.

"In a minute, I think." It's a lot more than a minute before he can stand without having the world swim around him, and even then he's glad they're right there, helping. "Sorry," he says, trying to keep track of his feet and not trip over anyone or anything.

"Almost there," Nathalie says, and gets the bedroom door open.

There isn't really room for three people on the bed, Sidney's sure of it, and when Mario says, "Lie on your back, it'll be easier," that's just going to make it worse.

"I'll be okay," he says, not quite willing to ask them to leave. "You can go--do whatever you need to do."

"This is what I need right now," Nathalie says, and settles on her side, her arm around Sidney's waist. "I've got two whole inches to spare. No problem."

The way the bed dips when Mario sits on it makes Sidney dizzier, but everything's making him dizzy. "If you're sure," Sidney says.

"Are you trying to kick us out of bed?" Mario asks, a laugh in his voice. Being hugged from both sides at once is almost too warm, almost too close--but nowhere near enough that Sidney's going to complain.

"No. Stay."

"Thank you, I think we will." Nathalie kisses Sidney's temple lightly. "Are you feeling any better?"

"A little." He finds her hand in the dark and squeezes her fingers. The vertigo hasn't let up, but the anxiety is fading, bit by bit.

Mario sighs. "I should set an alarm."

Sidney knows perfectly well that Mario's not leaving when he reaches for his phone, and that the things he has to do that afternoon are nothing to do with Sidney, but the movement and the sudden sharp light of the phone's display make his heart rate spike to an embarrassing degree. He makes himself hold still and breathe regularly, concentrating on the air, until Mario sets his phone aside.

Once it's dark again, Sidney can make himself say, "If you want to put something in the contract about, um. About what happens and where you want me to go, if--" he grits his teeth and gets the words out, extra-loud because he can barely hear them over the way his heart's pounding in his ears, just thinking them "--if I can't play anymore. I understand."

He'd thought they were half on top of him before, but that's nothing to the way they're pinning him down once he finishes the sentence. It's much harder to breathe, but it's weirdly comfortable. "You're not going anywhere," Nathalie says against his ear. "And you're going to get better."

"But if I don't," is all Sidney manages to say before Mario makes a furious noise and covers his mouth with his hand.

Mario says his voice low and urgent, "I'm not getting any better. God knows when I'll be on the ice again--if I will--for anything that counts. Do you want to leave now?" After a second's pause, he seems to realize that it's going to be hard for Sidney to answer him unless he moves his hand.

"No, don't be ridiculous," Sidney says.

"I'm being realistic."

"No, it's different," Sidney protests. "You're not, I mean, but--it's different."

Mario sighs in his ear. "Yes. You're going to get better. Maybe not overnight, but you will, and if--" he chokes on the words "--if you're never one-hundred percent where you were last year, you'll find another way to be brilliant."

Sidney bites his lip hard, sure he's blushing, his throat closing. "If you're sure."

Nathalie says, "Of course we are. And if something terrible we haven't thought of yet happens tomorrow, we'll deal with it. Together."

Sidney can't take deep breaths because there's much too much weight on his chest for that. He can breathe enough to say, "Okay," and that's all he needs to say, right then.

"We'll put it in the contract," Mario says, running his hand over Sidney's shoulder, "and account for all the possibilities we can think of."

"Later. When you're not tired enough to have waking nightmares," Nathalie says, easing to the side a little, though she's still pressed against him. "For now, stop fussing and go to sleep."

"I'm not fussing," Sidney says. "I just--I wanted to know."

Mario's mouth is warm against his for a long, slow kiss. "I suppose you owed us one for thinking you were going to find a gorgeous young thing and run away, but--everything is all right."

"Okay," Sidney says, and lets himself believe them.

He wakes up partway when Mario's alarm goes off, long enough to hear him say, "I'll see you tonight," and feel the bed shift as he gets up.

Nathalie gets up then, too, and pulls the covers up over Sidney. "Go back to sleep, Sid."

*

After a morning of lazy hugs, it's strange to share the couch with Geno and remember not to lean on him. Because of the discussion, Sidney doesn't feel like he has to be so careful. Nothing is exactly settled about Geno, yet, but at least Sidney knows they're not expecting him to pack up and move out. He tells Geno, "I'm still thinking," when they have a second alone.

Geno says, "I think a lot before, too," and kisses his hand.

"I bet you did." Sidney waggles his eyebrows and Geno stares at him for a second, then bursts out laughing. It feels great to laugh with him, at least up to the point where Sidney realizes that was probably flirting. "Sorry," he says.

"Why?"

Sidney shakes his head. "Just--it's complicated, and I know waiting for an answer is hard."

"Is okay." Geno shrugs. "I wait to ask. I wait for answer."

"How long?" Sidney asks.

Geno looks away, shaking his head. "Long enough."

"Sorry," Sidney says, wincing. "I didn't mean to--"

"It's okay." Geno shrugs.

Partway through a show on competitive bass fishing, Sidney falls asleep again. When he wakes up, he feels lonely for a second before he's entirely conscious. Then the day feels practically endless, or like it's been three days in one--the morning when the long talk happened, then dragging himself out of bed for lunch, and the late afternoon, with Geno snoring on the other end of the couch under an afghan.

Sidney says, "Hey, Geno."

He blinks awake and rubs his eyes. "Yeah?"

"It's getting late. Did you do your PT before you came over?"

"Some."

"Yeah, I didn't do enough either. Come on, couch potato, let's go." It doesn't take much to get them into the pattern of exercising once they're started. Then it's late enough that Geno stays for dinner, and it feels right to have him there, making faces at the kids or asking Mario or Nathalie questions, fitting into the way meals always work, loud, crowded, and over too soon.

"How's your head?" Alexa asks while they're clearing the table.

"Okay." Any answer more interesting than that and people tend to want him to talk to doctors, either because he's getting worse--which he isn't--or he might be better enough to play--which, the last few times he hoped he might be, he wasn't.

Alexa says, "Huh. You look like you had a good day."

"I did, yeah. Not an exciting day like you, starting your science project, but it was good."

"That's not exciting yet." Alexa sets down the plates and starts opening cupboards. "Do you know where the food coloring is?"

Sidney stops himself from answering immediately. "What do you need it for?"

"Science."

"I'm not sure where it is. Let's ask Nathalie. What part of your project is it for?"

Nathalie's first answer to "Where's the food coloring?" is the same as Sidney's, which makes him smile.

"It's for celery," Alexa says. "We have celery, right?"

"I don't think anyone's going to want to eat it after it's full of food coloring, but, yes, we do." Nathalie gives up and takes down a small box of liquid food coloring while Alexa carefully slices the celery. "Where do you want to set up your mad science experiment?"

"On the counter," Alexa says.

"Salad for dessert?" Geno asks from the doorway.

"No," Alexa says, and explains xylem and phloem tubes to Geno, who nods and tells her the words in Russian.

After Geno goes home for the night and the kids are in bed, Sidney's wide awake and more anxious than he wants to admit. He's not sure how the negotiations are going to work, exactly. They're at the kitchen table, since it's easier to get to than the office. This time, there are no suits, because Sidney doesn't have the energy to spare to dress up, which makes it feel strangely informal. He fidgets and hopes for the best until Nathalie says, "He's a good boy."

"You'll have to be careful with each other, at first," Mario says. He sounds concerned, but not enough to call everything off.

"We will be," Sidney promises, as sincerely as he promises everything else. He won't leave, they won't want him to, and everyone will do their best not to surprise anyone else.

Putting it all down on paper takes enough time that when they're done, all the t's crossed and i's dotted, Sidney's thinking longingly of going to bed for more than the obvious reasons, despite all the napping. Kissing helps, once they've signed the documents in the right places and they can finally touch each other again. It hasn't been that long, and they've let their fingers brush, but it's still a relief when Mario takes the papers upstairs to the office and Nathalie hugs Sidney without hesitating for a second. "Do you feel better now?" he asks, before she can check on him or anything else.

"Yes," she says, and kisses him again. "Do you?"

"I was fine before," he points out. "I mean--about us, at least."

"Still, I hope it was worth the time." She traces the line of his cheekbone with her thumb.

"If it helps you? Definitely."

Nathalie says, "Sometimes I wonder how we got so lucky," and pulls him in for another kiss before he can say anything. Once he's thoroughly distracted by the way her mouth feels against his, she lets him go and asks, "If we drag you to bed, should we tuck you in and let you sleep?"

It might be what the doctors would tell him to do, but--"Please don't. I mean. Yes, let's go to bed, but I want to get you both off, even if I can't."

She shivers and smiles at him. "We'll see what we can manage. You should be careful of your head, but if you lie back and let me ride you, it shouldn't be too much of a problem."

Sidney buries his face in her shoulder and hopes he can follow through. "Let's give it a try."

Then Mario calls softly, "Just me again," and comes down the stairs.

Nathalie says, "Help me get your young man to bed," as if Sidney's falling down just standing there with her. The world's not entirely steady, but he's all right.

"I'm fine, really."

Mario says, "Are you sure about that?"

After another couple of kisses, Sidney's not sure of anything except that he wants to touch them more than any of them are willing to dare in the kitchen. "Bed," he says, and it feels like a few seconds before he's in his room, their hands on him, helping him and each other out of their clothes. One of them turns on the lamp by the bed, which is angled so all the light is indirect.

"How's your head?" Mario asks, his hands warm on Sidney's stomach.

"Okay for right now." Lying down will probably make the world swim, but they're not going to let him hurt himself. When Mario kisses his neck and his knees wobble, Nathalie's right behind him.

"Lie down, Sid," she says, and with enough help and more kisses, he ends up flat on his back, Nathalie on her knees over him.

He presses his palms against the bed, trying to ground himself, but nothing physical helps with the vertigo as much as it should. "Give me a few minutes?"

"As long as you need," she says. "Should I get off of you?"

"Only if you want to."

"Now that's a tempting offer." Nathalie smiles at him, and he smiles back, even if it comes out weak. "I'm not sure when I'll want to."

Mario pats her hip. "Would it help if I asked politely?"

Nathalie hums, considering the question for long enough that Sidney has to bite his tongue to keep himself from giggling at her. "All right, but don't make him come too soon."

"What's 'too soon'?" Mario asks.

"Before I'm done with him." She kisses Sidney's neck, open-mouthed and wet, and rocks her hips against his stomach until he groans. He wants to make her stay right there for the rest of the night, her warm weight on top of him. When she sits up and moves to the side so she's hugging him, he lets her, mostly because he's still too dizzy to give her what she wants yet.

"I'll be gentle," Mario promises. He puts his hand on Sidney's stomach, rubbing lightly. "Is this all right?"

"Sure. Just don't tickle me."

"I'll try not to." Mario bends over, kissing Sidney's chest right where his fingers touch.

Nathalie props herself up on her elbow, watching. "Keep breathing," she says.

"I am," Sidney promises her.

"Still good?" Mario asks, against his navel.

"Yes." Sidney's braced for the wet-warm-cool brush of his tongue, and carefully doesn't gasp, or startle, or move at all--if he turns his head, he'll have to lie still even longer--until Mario licks his nipple. "God."

"All right?" Mario asks against his chest.

Sidney tugs his hair lightly. "Of course. You don't have to keep checking."

"I know, but I want to hear you say it." Mario draws lines down his stomach, along the definition of his muscles, first with his hands, then with firm kisses, pressing hard enough not to tickle.

"It feels good," Sidney says, his breath catching in his throat.

Nathalie kisses him. "Head settled yet?"

He fights the instinct to shake his head. "Not quite."

"Bend your knee," Mario says, and gets Sidney's foot flat against the bed before pressing another series of kisses to the inside of his thigh. Sidney can't lean into the touch as much as he'd like.

"Kiss me again?" Sidney asks Nathalie. It's easier to make soft noises into her mouth than when he has to hear himself clearly, and when Mario bites him, just above his knee, the gasp isn't as embarrassing, either.

"Too much?" Mario asks.

Sidney laughs when Nathalie lets him go so he can answer. "You're fine, it's fine, you're just--" he tries to find the words. "Having too much fun."

"I don't think so." Mario runs his hands up Sidney's thigh like a masseur, and stops before he gets close enough to touch Sidney's dick. "But if you're sure, should I stop?"

"Not yet." Sidney makes the muscles in his legs relax, one by one, and tries not to tense under the kisses.

"Eventually," Nathalie says.

Sidney touches her shoulder. "I'm all right. He won't get me that way again." The most memorable time they did this--light kisses, harder kisses, little bites making his skin tingle--Sidney had lost track of how to ask for anything else, or how to say much of anything other than "Please," and was enough of a wreck by the time Mario went down on him that he came immediately.

He's better than that now, and he's not going to let Nathalie down.

Mario sighs. "Some other time."

"You're terrible, dear," Nathalie says fondly. "Has the world stopped spinning the wrong way?"

"Mostly." Sidney hisses through his teeth at another bite. "I think--I think I can do this."

"I have no complaints so far," Mario says.

"Not what I meant." Sidney cups Nathalie's breast and teases her nipple with his thumb, making it harden. "I'd love to fuck you." Sometimes saying it like that feels harsh, sometimes it's just the right kind of dirty. He says, "Please," to take the edge off it. "If you still want to, anyway."

She laughs once as she kneels up. "When would I have changed my mind?"

Sidney grins at her. "Never, I hope. But I want you to tell me what you want from me."

"So demanding." Nathalie straddles him.

The bed shifts as Mario gets onto his knees behind her. "Just a second."

"What's up?" Sidney asks.

"Just looking for the best view."

Nathalie leans back against Mario, his head on her shoulder, grinding very slowly. "Will this work?"

"Beautiful," he says, and reaches between her legs to stroke her, making her shudder.

"Sorry, I think I've got the best seat in the house," Sidney says. He could watch the way they move together all night long, practiced and precise, entirely aware of each other.

Mario laughs softly. "We'll have to agree to disagree."

Nathalie says, "Besides, I win that one," and pushes Mario's hand away slowly. She runs her hand down Sidney's chest to his waist, smiling at him. "I want you to hold very still for me, Sid."

He couldn't go much of anywhere if he wanted to, not with both of them braced over his legs and torso. "I'll try."

"Think of it like--hell, like a yoga position. Press your shoulders into the bed and keep them there, whatever your hips do."

"If yoga classes were like this, I'd take one," Mario says.

"Every day," Sidney agrees.

Nathalie shakes her head. "We're not to the difficult part yet. You have to keep your shoulders where they are, and God, I need you inside me."

"Whatever you need," Sidney says, biting his lip to keep himself from moving too early.

"Whatever I need," Nathalie echoes him. She kneels up a little, then eases down onto his dick so slowly he has to close his eyes and count his breaths to keep his composure. "I need you right here with me, filling me up, just like that." She pats his hip and keeps going, letting up and rocking down again until Sidney's panting for breath, and they've barely started. "Both of you, right here," she says, and her voice is rougher.

A flash of belated politeness crosses Sidney's mind as the first surge of desperation fades, and he says, "Sorry, sorry," and reaches towards her. He doesn't have to open his eyes to pet her leg and ease his hand up.

"What for?" Nathalie asks.

"I meant to--" Sidney opens his eyes, and laughs at himself, when his fingers touch Mario's. "Oh. I wasn't thinking."

"I didn't ask you to think." Nathalie rolls her hips again, smiling at him, her expression slightly dazed. "Keep your shoulders on the bed, that's all you have to do."

Mario clears his throat. "You forgot a step, there."

"I did?" Nathalie arches her back and Sidney covers his mouth to remind himself to be as quiet as he can.

"He's doing great at staying where you want him," Mario says, nuzzling her neck, his fingers teasing her in rhythm to her thrusts. "But he might be better if he fucked you a little faster."

"Please," Sidney says, aware his voice is choked, that his legs are shaking, "whenever you want."

Nathalie sighs and tries an experimental thrust. "Maybe just a little bit. But careful of your shoulders."

"I will be." Sidney pets her thigh and lets himself move with her, speeding up until they have a new, steady pace. "Like this?"

"Just like that. Don't stop." Nathalie groans and turns her head to kiss Mario, who's working his hips against her.

Sidney has to focus to remember to keep his shoulders still when she writhes and shudders, her eyes squeezed shut as she comes. She usually wants him to slow down for a while after her first orgasm, which is hard enough when his head is clear. "Sorry, I--" he can't shake his head, and the words aren't there. "Can I just--"

"Yes," Nathalie says, her voice hoarse. She twists her hips on the next stroke, enough to make Sidney moan. "Keep going. I want to feel you come."

Mario puts his hand on Sidney's hip. "Go on, Sid."

He can't hold on much longer, listening to them, feeling them both, and he can't keep his eyes open. His head is starting to throb, but the orgasm hits faster than the headache, if only by a few ragged breaths.

Nathalie sighs contentedly and strokes his stomach, still lazily rocking her hips. "That looked like fun."

"Mmhm," Sidney says, deciding that he'd better not open his eyes any more than he has to until the lights are out. If he was by himself, he'd pull the covers over his head, but he doesn't want to worry them, and the covers are off the end of the bed. The light isn't that bad with his eyes shut, anyway.

"Don't stop right now," Mario says, his voice choked.

"Sorry," Sidney says, "I can't--"

"Shh." Nathalie kneels up, still rocking her hips against Mario. "You're fine right where you are."

"Fuck, you're perfect," Mario says.

Sidney knows the catch in Mario's breathing, the sound of them moving together, well enough to know what they're doing with his eyes closed, but it's worth risking a more vicious headache to see them, Nathalie on her knees, Mario pulling her back. "Can I?" Sidney asks, reaching between her legs. At the new angle, he can't quite reach her, but he's not going to move his shoulders off the bed and risk another dizzy spell.

"God, you're--" Nathalie laughs with a gasp in the middle and edges forward just enough. "Hang on a second, love--there, that's--" she shivers, bracing herself on her hands. It's not the easiest position, but Sidney knows her body, knows the rhythms they like, well enough to give her another orgasm, and Mario's follows a few moments later.

It takes them a while to catch their breath. Sidney asks, "Was that enough?"

Nathalie says, "For tonight. How are you doing?"

He says, "Fine," because the headache isn't bad enough that he needs to do anything about it except sleep, and she knows perfectly well how badly he needs a shower.

"Only fine?" Mario asks. He gets up, moving slowly, and helps Nathalie to her feet, too. Then he squeezes Sidney's foot like a tiny hug. "You're a glorious mess. Do you want a shower?"

"In the morning," Sidney says. "There are baby wipes on the--"

"Got them." Nathalie finds the box and puts it in his hand so he doesn't have to look for them.

He tries not to feel any more pathetic than he has to. He'd do the same for her if she needed him to, or for Mario. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Here, you missed a spot." Nathalie takes one of the wipes and pats down his stomach.

Sidney closes his eyes and keeps himself from shaking his head. He can be embarrassed about needing help another time, when he's not half-asleep and trying to think of anything other than how much his head could hurt in a few minutes. "All better?"

"Yes." Nathalie leans over and kisses him. "Good night, sweetheart."

He says, "Good night," and kisses Mario, too, catching him by the shoulder and holding him for a long time. Instead of asking them to stay, he says, "See you in the morning." They can't stay, not any longer than it takes them to get dressed, but he will see them tomorrow, and the day after that. It has to be enough.

"Do you have any laundry?" Nathalie asks. "These pants are going in first thing."

"I'm all set," Sidney says, or thinks he probably says, anyway.

Someone turns off the light, and Mario says, "Sleep well." It's the last thing Sidney hears before morning.

It's easier to face the next day, knowing that if he needs help, he can have it; if he needs a hug, he can have one; and if they need something from him, they'll let him know.

And when it's safe, whatever that means, he can tell Geno the whole secret, all the joy he hasn't been able to explain to anyone else. He doesn't want to share all the details--even if he had words for the way it feels to kiss them and know that they trust him, to touch them and talk to them until late into the night, he wouldn't want to give that away. It's enough that someone else will be allowed to know why he's happy.

Eventually.

As things stand, Sidney doesn't want Geno to be concerned whether Nathalie or anyone else will overhear them, so he waits until he's alone in the house with Geno. It takes two days and a talk with Nathalie to get there, but it's worth the wait.

"About that thing I was thinking about," Sidney says, when he hears Nathalie's car leave, and turns off the television.

Having all of Geno's attention focused on him feels like being in a face-off he can't lose. "Yes?"

"It's still complicated," Sidney says. "I want to kiss you again, and I'm going to, but first, there are--um. There are other things involved."

Geno sighs, but he's grinning, so it's not too bad a sigh. "I keep secrets," he says.

"I know." Sidney wants to reach for him and kiss him. He'd do it right then if he hadn't promised himself and everyone else that he'd get through the hard parts of the discussion first. "I'm seeing someone else," he says, and can't keep himself from smiling. It sounds informal, compared to the new contract or even the old one. "I had to talk to them first, before I was sure we could do anything. And they're okay with you, with this, with--us. I promise."

"Who is? Who you date?" Geno asks.

"That's what makes it hard." Sidney has to close his eyes for a second. "I can't tell you who it is yet. They want to make sure they--we--can trust each other first."

Geno frowns for a long moment. "You trust me?"

"Yes," Sidney says immediately. He's thought about it long enough that he's sure. "I'd tell you right now if I could, but they want to wait." The way Geno's still frowning makes him wonder whether they've already done something wrong, or if this is just too much to ask of Geno. "If you're, you know, interested in other people too, that's okay. Just tell me first."

"Okay? Okay." Geno stares at him. "No one else, not now. But with other person, is serious?"

"Yes, but--" Sidney tries to find the easiest way to explain it. "I can't be with them in public, and they know--they really, really know--what it's like to love more than one person at once." Geno's eyes widen and Sidney coughs. "I mean, I love them, and I really like you. A lot. And they're okay with that."

"When you tell me name?"

"When I can. As soon as I can." Sidney offers his hand. He wants to offer everything at once. "Do you want to do this?"

"Yes." Geno takes his hand and shakes it firmly, then leans toward him.

The second kiss is so much better than the first, deeper and wetter. The heat makes Sidney shiver and ease closer. He presses himself against Geno's legs, against his chest, only remembering just in time that he shouldn't jar Geno's knee. He settles for pushing his hands under Geno's shirt and tracing the muscles of his back, his stomach. Geno has one hand on Sidney's shoulder, the other on his waist. When Geno tucks his fingers into the waistband of Sidney's pants and groans, Sidney's head throbs and he has to break off the kiss. "Oh, God," he says. "Sorry, that was great." He taps his forehead. "I'm just--"

Geno kisses his forehead lightly. "We go slow," he says, the corner of his mouth curving up the way it always does when he's making a great joke.

Laughing doesn't help Sidney's head at all, but he can't help it. "Then we'd better start over again."

Neither of them is any good at keeping it slow, or keeping their hands to themselves. They break apart a few more times before Sidney says, "Hang on," and gets up as steadily as he can.

"Where you going?" Geno asks.

"I want to blow you," Sidney says. "Okay?"

Geno coughs, his face flushing. "Okay, yes. Now?"

Sidney checks the time. Nathalie had promised she'd be gone at least three hours, in case the conversation took them a long time, and they still have four hours until the kids come home from school. "Sure. I mean, I like doing everything else with you. If the sex is as good as the hockey, we're golden."

"Okay," Geno says after a moment, grinning at him. "Fuck, yes. Yes. But here?"

"I can help you get to my bedroom if you want, but this would be easier. Why not?"

"Anyone walks in," Geno says, glancing toward the door.

"Then we'll stop."

Geno takes a long, shivery breath. His cheeks are flushed and Sidney wants to kiss him again. "If anyone walks in, you explain, not me," he says.

Sidney laughs at how easy that would be. "Yeah, no problem. Give me a second."

One of the most obvious parts of the contract was how careful he had to be with Geno--or, as Nathalie said, anybody else, whoever that anybody else was in her head. She'd done some shopping after the long conversation, which made things easier, since Sidney wouldn't have known where to start with the array of options.

Sidney hopes Geno won't be able to tell that it's only the second time he's tried to give someone a blowjob with a condom. It went okay on the first attempt, but he doesn't like feeling like he's not sure what to do.

The way Geno looks at him--eyes wide, grinning--when he comes back with a strip of condoms in his hand and a bottle of lube in his pocket helps. "Not kidding," Geno says, half a question.

"Why would I kid about this?" Sidney helps him get his leg off the coffee table to make space and says, "Sorry, sorry," every time Geno winces.

"Is okay," Geno says. With a little work and some help balancing, it's not that hard to get his knees spread and his pants around his ankles.

Sidney kisses him again and Geno sighs against his mouth. "So much for going slow," Sidney says, and Geno takes in a quick breath through his teeth, as if he's hurt.

"I wait so long." Geno runs his thumb over Sidney's lower lip. "No more slow."

"I can work with that." Sidney kisses the tip of his thumb and watches the way Geno closes his eyes and smiles. "I might have to stop in the middle, though. I mean, I'm not going to leave you with blue balls any longer than I can help, but if my head--you know--then I'll need a break."

Geno gives him the same look he gets every time he talks to someone about recovery, the "Are you pushing yourself too hard?" look. Geno's injury is easier for the damned doctors to predict. "Sure you want this?"

"Yes, or I wouldn't have offered." Sidney kisses him again until they're both gasping for breath, then gets on his knees. Moving that much makes him dizzy, but not so much he can't cope.

Geno says, "Fuck, Sid," from the beginning and strokes his hair much too lightly. They'll have time to work on that later. It's one more thing that reminds him, with every touch of Geno's fingers, who he's doing this with. The condom tastes weird, but he'll get used to that, and to strange texture against his tongue around the familiar-unfamiliar length of Geno's dick. When Geno groans and asks, "Can I?" Sidney pulls off.

"What do you need?" he asks.

For a few seconds, Geno blinks at him, searching for words. "I move?" he asks. "Not much?"

"Oh, yeah, sure. Go for it." Sidney takes him deeper and shivers when Geno thrusts up just a little--it's easier than moving on his own, and the world is starting to spin hard--but then Geno hisses.

"Can't," he says.

Sidney stops again to ask, "Can't what?"

Geno shakes his head. "Can't move like that. Fucking knee."

"Okay. Then hold still and let me do this." Sidney holds out his hand until Geno takes it. There are ways around words, and he should've thought of them sooner. Of course Geno can't think straight when he's this hard. "Tap the back of my hand if I'm going too fast, okay?"

"Okay." Geno says, running his thumb over Sidney's knuckles.

It's easier on the gag reflex and harder on the inner ear when Geno's trying like hell to hold still and Sidney can work him at his own speed. The pattern of Geno's breath and the way he swears give him a guide to follow--more deep strokes, less suction, letting his lips drag in the way that makes Geno say his name again in a broken voice but there's no tap on his hand with it. Sidney thinks he's getting into the swing of it and finding the right speed, and if his head is throbbing a little, he can deal with it later, after Geno strokes his hair one last time and comes, his hand resting on the back of Sidney's neck, present and warm, and not pushing at all.

Sidney sits back on his heels and starts counting his breaths, waiting for the head rush to subside, and watching Geno's face as he goes from blissed out to comfortable to distressed.

"You okay?" Geno asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Sidney kisses his good knee and smiles--he's smiled through worse than feeling like he's on a roller coaster while he knows nothing's moving. "I just need to sit for a few minutes before I do anything else."

"Open your eyes," Geno says. "You okay?"

Sidney does because the last thing he needs is Geno flipping out while he's half-naked. "I'm good. It was just a little too much."

The way Geno's frowning at him he might as well have tried going into a practice with full contact and no helmet. "A little? You look--" he shakes his head. So much for the afterglow.

"I'm fine." Sidney pats Geno's thigh and pulls himself up onto the couch to prove that he's okay. "It wasn't any worse than when I'm out of breath from training." It really is, but the payoff is worth it. After a few deep breaths, he reaches toward the coffee table and snags a tissue. "Here, clean up and I can help you get dressed again."

"How is head when you--" Geno makes the jerk-off gesture.

Sidney shrugs. "Sometimes I'm fine. Sometimes it's not a good idea." There have been way too many days when it hasn't been a good idea. He misses being able to trust his brain and body to get along the way they always used to. Today trying to get off might not be the greatest idea, but he's willing to give it a shot and see how far they get.

Geno wipes himself off and bundles a handful of tissues together. "Is good idea now?" he asks.

"Maybe," Sidney says. He's not going to lie to Geno about anything. That was one of the things he was clear about with Mario and Nathalie, not that they argued with him about it. Sometimes he won't tell the whole truth, exactly, but if that happens he wants to be able to say so. "I want you to, even if it doesn't work."

"Come here?" Geno says.

Kissing him again, long and lingering, is enough to make Sidney want to drag him off to bed after all, but those logistics are more than he wants to deal with. It's easier to hug him like this, where he can get both arms around Geno. "You feel so good," he says, and even if he's stating the obvious, sometimes he needs to say it anyway.

"You, too." Geno kisses him. "Pants off?"

Sidney gets them unfastened, his hands only shaking a little. The dizziness is starting to pass, finally He buries his face in Geno's shoulder when Geno touches him skin-to-skin, the rush of arousal making his headache spike again. "Hang on."

"Not letting go," Geno says, but he does anyway.

"I can do this." Sidney gets his pants off, slower than normal because if he stands up again, it'll make the vertigo come back. He sets his clothes aside so they'll be easy to grab afterward. "I'm okay," he says. "Go ahead."

Geno looks much more skeptical than Sidney thinks he deserves. "Stop me if need to."

"I will, I will, I promise."

Geno strokes him with one fingertip to start with, pressing just hard enough not to tickle. Sidney gasps and presses up against his hand, trying to get more contact. "Let's start slow," Geno says, smiling like he knows exactly what he's doing and he's going to keep doing it as long as Sidney lets him get away with it.

Sidney never wants him to stop.

"Oh my God." Sidney reaches for Geno's shoulder to brace himself so he has some vague idea where down is. "Are you always this--" Geno squeezes him and he loses whatever it was he was trying to say. "Fuck, please."

"Been too long?" Geno asks.

At least if the heat in Sidney's cheeks means he's blushing, he's got every reason to be red in the face right now. "I really liked sucking you off, that's all."

"Makes you hard?" Geno kisses him, scraping his teeth over Sidney's lower lip until he moans. The headache is there, but not strongly enough that he wants to stop.

"Most of the time, yeah." Sidney grins. He can feel a throb starting in his cheekbone under his eye and it's not a good sign, but he's not giving up. "Is it okay if I, if I straddle your thigh?"

"Yes." Geno helps him balance, helps him get situated, and puts his arm around Sidney's waist so he can brace himself. "Okay?"

"I will be when you start again." Sidney groans into his mouth at the next touch and does his best to think about how good it is, how great Geno felt in his mouth, the sounds Geno made, and the way he shook when he came. He can do that again, soon. He can have this, can fuck Geno's hand and gasp against his mouth, and it's all going to be great.

"You look so good," Geno says. "I thought--"

"What?" Sidney asks, trying to figure out what he needs to say that can't wait.

"Thought you say no."

Sidney kisses him again to make him stop sounding sad. "God, I want this, I want you."

Geno groans and squeezes him harder. "Fuck."

"I--I need," Sidney says, and he doesn't get a chance to finish the sentence before Geno speeds up and gets him off.

The last pulses of the orgasm settle in Sidney's head, letting him know he's been much too ambitious. "Okay?" Geno asks.

Sidney doesn't open his eyes, but he doesn't need to look to find the couch and sit on it. "Yeah. Just my head being weird again. You were great. Thanks."

"I told you stop me." Geno sounds like he's angry, like he's worried, like he doesn't know it was great. Sidney doesn't want to look.

"It was okay up to the last five seconds, and then it was too late. Sometimes it gets like that." He holds out his hand. "Could you give me some tissues?"

Geno sighs and puts a wad of tissues into his hand. "Need doctor?"

"No." Sidney sighs. "I'll go lie down in my nice, dark room. You can stay if you want, or--" he thinks of his last mid-morning nap with company and how comforting it was to know and Nathalie were right there with him. "Come with me?"

"No more sex," Geno says firmly.

Sidney doesn't have the energy to laugh and smiling hurts when he tries it. "No, no more sex."

"Okay. Just nap."

Sharing a bed with Geno is more awkward, even though there are only two of them. He doesn't know where Geno wants to lie or where to put his arms, and when he thinks they're finally settled, Geno moves again. After a few false starts, Sidney ends up with his head on Geno's shoulder. "Is this okay?" he asks before he lets himself relax too much.

"Yes." Geno strokes his hair. "Okay if I read on phone?"

"Sure." Sidney listens to Geno's breathing and waits for the world to settle down to its normal speed. He doesn't fall asleep, but he's comfortable.

After a while--Sidney has no idea how long, not really--Geno asks, "You awake?"

"More or less." Sidney stretches his legs out, testing them. "I don't want to move yet, but if you want to talk, okay."

"Okay." Geno says, then pauses like he has a hard sentence to put together. "Who knows you are gay?"

"I'm not, I'm bisexual," Sidney says. He hasn't said it out loud many times, but it's not as though he doesn't know. "And--a couple of my friends. And the people I've dated." He's not sure that what he's done with anyone counts as dating, but it's a more comfortable term to use than "fucked."

"Family?" Geno asks, his voice gentler.

There's a lump in Sidney's throat when he says, "No," because that feels like a partial truth. "Nobody else on the team." He's tried to figure out how to tell him the next part, and the best way he can think of is, "Mario knows, and Nathalie. And they know I like you. And they're fine with that."

Geno coughs like he wasn't expecting that. "You tell them?"

"Yes," Sidney says. "I mean, if you're going to spend the night, ever, it's a lot easier if we don't have to sneak around. And really, it's okay."

"But not parents?"

"No," Sidney says, wondering how upside-down that sounds to Geno. "There hasn't been anybody I could introduce them to, and if I can't do that, I just--" he falters. "I think they'd be upset, and it would be worse if I couldn't say, you know, 'And here's this person I care about.'"

"Yes," Geno says, sighing. "My parents, I tell when I leave home. They worry, but worry less when I have someone." He strokes Sidney's hair again. "I tell them about you?"

The thought of Geno's family knowing and somehow thinking it's a better idea than Geno being single, or Geno being with a woman, makes Sidney's eyes prickle. He knows he's not just a dirty secret to Mario and Nathalie, but sometimes he wishes he could explain about them to someone who'd be happy for him. "When you're sure this is a good idea?" he says. "I mean, if things work out."

"Already sure I like you," Geno says, and adds, "You like me, yes?"

"Well, yeah." Sidney pokes him in the stomach for asking a dumb question. "And I like having sex with you, too."

"Then I tell them. But no more sex until your head better." Sidney can hear him smile when he says it.

"I'm okay now," he says, and tries not to whine. "I just don't want to get up."

"Then we stay here." Geno pats his hip and settles in closer. "When you see other person?" He sounds like he's not sure he gets to ask the question.

Sidney says, "When I can," which sums it up without being too specific.

"A lot?"

It's dark in the room with the curtains closed. Geno probably can't see him smile when he says, "Enough."

"You date a long time?"

Sidney has thought about how to answer most of the easy questions, so it's simple to say, "A few years, yeah," without giving him an exact date. The more specifics he gives, the more likely it is Geno will figure out what's going on.

"Years?" Geno asks, surprised.

Sometimes it feels like months. Sometimes it feels like forever. "Yeah."

"You tell friends?"

"No." Sidney swallows. It sounds worse than not telling his parents. Friends talk about this kind of thing, and Geno's his friend, whatever else they are, too. "You're the first one who knows I'm seeing anybody."

Geno says, "Shit," quietly.

They've talked about what to tell the kids if they ask, and whether any of them have figured it out. None of them have ever brought it up to Sidney, and he's pretty sure that they would, if they thought there was anything weird going on. It's not the kind of conversation he wants to have with anyone, though, and the more people who know a secret, the more vulnerable it is.

"Yeah, so--" Sidney presses his face against Geno's shoulder, breathing in the familiar smell of his laundry detergent and Geno underneath it. "I want to tell you, but I can't yet."

"Until--what?"

"Until we're sure this is going to work, you and me. And until I can tell them enough things about you for them to trust you."

"You want them to?" Geno asks, his voice soft.

"Yes." Sidney hugs him tightly. "Or you wouldn't be here. It's just--" he doesn't have any good words that don't give things away. "It's complicated, that's all. You know how privacy can be, and it's not about you. It's not like they heard your name and freaked out."

"Okay. Is man or woman?" Geno asks.

Sidney bites his tongue on the truth. "I'm not giving you any clues. Sorry."

"Okay. Worth a try," Geno says, and Sidney can hear his smile.

The front door opens and closes, just loudly enough that Sidney can hear it, which means Nathalie must have slammed it hard. Usually, he doesn't hear it unless he's paying attention.

Geno tenses next to him. "Nathalie knows, yes?" he asks.

"Yes."

Geno sighs, and some of the tension goes away. "And she leave you alone with me."

Sidney tries to imagine Nathalie chaperoning them for the rest of their recovery, whichever of them gets better first, and giggles. "She has better things to do than babysit us."

"Next time, we fuck in here," Geno says. "No more make out on couch." 

"If it means that much to you, sure."

Geno snorts. "You do that lots? Bring home person, fuck in living room?"

"God, no." The only times he's had a chance to do anything quite that wild were when the kids were all away, which has happened exactly three times in the past four years. And even then, the bed was a better option, because while there's more space on the floor, they all had to be able to walk the next day. "Why, do you?"

"No." Geno laughs softly. "You bring home lots of people?"

"No. I really--don't, no." Sidney swallows. "When I'm serious about somebody, I stick with them as long as they'll have me, basically. And I've been pretty lucky about that." He knows he's been ridiculously lucky about that, and about plenty of other things. He knows about Geno's longest relationship, but not much else. He might be doing almost anything--except, Sidney's willing to bet, not Gonch. "Um. Do you date a lot?"

Geno is quiet for longer than the question deserves. Sidney wonders if he's counting girlfriends and boyfriends and trying to decide whether they're "a lot" or not. "Hard to let people go," he says finally. "Harder to find new person."

Sidney says, "Yeah, I'm terrible at letting people go," and smiles when Geno laughs and squeezes him. He's not going to explain how seriously he means it. He's heard enough jokes about his failure to get a place of his own that he figures he doesn't need to make one now.

"We make it work." The way Geno says it, it could be a promise that they're going to win a game.

"It's pretty good so far." Sidney sits up enough to kiss him again.

"Yes," Geno agrees.

They're both quiet for a while longer. Sidney's headache is almost gone when Geno says, "Question," his voice serious again.

"Yeah?"

"What happen if I say, 'Date on Friday?' and other person say, 'Date on Friday?'"

The number of clauses in the new contract about equitable time and energy devoted to various relationships took a solid hour to work through. "That depends what's happening on Saturday, and if one of you can reschedule."

"But if both busy Saturday."

Sidney works through the clauses in his head. "If it's during the season after you're playing again, them, because we'll have some time together on the road. If it's, you know, this Friday? You, because we have to figure out what we're doing, but I'm not ready to go anywhere exciting. Or bright. Or with anyone I don't know in it."

"Okay," Geno says. "I come over? Bring movie?"

"That would be great." Sidney kisses him.

"But you still not answer first question," Geno says, turning his face away. "Two dates for Friday. Who you with?"

"I could draw you the flowchart if you wanted." When Geno laughs, Sidney says, "Well, that's basically what it is. But it's complicated, because you can't just say 'All other things being equal.' They're not equal, and I'm not going to pretend they are."

Geno sighs. "They win the toss. And they know everything."

"Not everything." Sidney props himself up on his elbow and looks at Geno, wondering how to make him realize that just being together is huge. "And when we spend more time together, just the two of us, there will be more things they don't know."

"Then you come over Friday," Geno says. "We fuck on my couch. Watch a movie. I make you dinner."

Sidney grins. "Okay, but in that order?"

"Any order." Geno pulls him down for another kiss.

*

Late that night, Nathalie knocks on the door to check on him and say good night, and Mario's with her. "So, how did it go?" she asks, looking like she's been dying to find out since the afternoon.

"Fine," Sidney says.

"Just 'fine'?" Nathalie asks, staring at him and almost laughing. 

He grins and shrugs. "I really like him. And he's not, well, he's not happy I haven't told him everything, but I think he understands, or he's going to deal with it, anyway."

Mario says, "That's good. But then, he's proven pretty conclusively he can keep a secret if he wants to."

"The trick is whether he wants to, yes." Nathalie sits on the edge of Sidney's bed.

"I think he would," Sidney says. "I'm not asking--yet--because I know it's much too soon, but he's--" he can't find the words.

Mario nods and sits next to Nathalie for all of a second before he stands up again. There isn't really much room to pace, but he does it anyway. "The consequences would be--"

"I know," Sidney says before he can finish the sentence. They don't need to go through it all again. "Oh. And I'm going over there Friday." He wants to ask if that's okay, but it's one of the possibilities they talked through yesterday. It has to be okay by the rules. "You didn't have other plans, did you?"

"No, that's fine," Mario says after he glances at Nathalie.

"And he wants to tell his parents," Sidney says, smiling. It sounds like good news in his head. "I think that's--"

"Tell them what?" Mario asks, his voice sharp.

Sidney blinks. "Not about anything to do with you, obviously. They already know Geno likes guys, and he wants them to know we're dating, so he wanted to know if he could tell them."

"Ah," Nathalie says. "Breathe, dear. I'm glad his parents are supportive."

"Yes, that's good," Mario agrees, sounding like the words are almost impossible to say. "You two might be rushing into things, though." 

"It's not like I just met him in a bar," Sidney says, staring at him and trying to figure out what the problem is. "It's Geno. He's not going to find out something about me and freak out. He already knows most of the weird stuff, I mean--other than--" he nods at Mario, who groans. "And he already knows there's something complicated there, and he's curious but he dropped it when I asked him to."

"That's a good sign," Nathalie says, and puts her arm around Sidney. "And the rest of it was nice?"

"Yes. I like kissing him. A lot." Sidney can't look at either of them and say that, and he's not going to elaborate. "I like him a lot, and I think he knows that."

Mario says, "Well, if he's calling his parents, he must have some idea how you feel." He rubs his eyes. "At least neither of you panicked. I'm going to bed."

"I'm sorry," Sidney says, reaching toward him. "Everything is fine, really."

Mario hugs him tightly and says, his voice tense, "Just think about what you're doing and be careful, all right?"

"I will," Sidney says, though he's not sure what that means under the circumstances. Talking to them about having sex with people he's dating is a discretionary clause, as long as there are no physical consequences. "Are you okay?"

"I will be." Mario kisses him, holding on to his shoulders as if Sidney wants to go somewhere. "It'll help when you're here tomorrow."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I know. I--know. Good night." Mario leaves before Sidney can think of anything else to say to make it better.

Nathalie sighs and hugs him again. "I'm glad it went well."

"I thought we talked enough that he wasn't going to be upset."

"There aren't enough words for that." She rubs Sidney's shoulder. "He just needs time to adjust. You're not doing anything wrong."

"Do you want me to come upstairs?" Sidney offers. He doesn't want to deal with stairs before coffee in the morning, let alone in the middle of the night when he's groggy and his head might be weird, but if it's what they need, he'll try.

"Not tonight, thank you." Nathalie smiles at him sadly. "I'm glad you like him."

"So am I, but--" Sidney glances toward the door. "It's not like I'm trying to replace you."

"I know. Give us some time, that's all." She kisses his cheek and lets him go.

Sidney tries to figure out what he could have done better until he falls asleep. Sometimes his dreams give him answers, but this isn't one of those times.

The next morning, Mario taps on his door at eight-thirty. "Are you awake?"

"Sort of," Sidney says, and makes himself sit up.

"Would you like some coffee?"

"Sure."

There's just enough free space on the nightstand for two mugs, and that's how they end up sitting on the edge of the bed, the pillows behind them, legs pressed together. "It's not about Geno," Mario says quietly.

Sidney wonders if he missed the beginning of the conversation somewhere in the fog of waking up. "Okay."

"It's not even all about you." Mario takes a sip of coffee. "Believe it or not."

"Okay," Sidney says again, to prove he's awake. "Then what is it?"

"Trying not to make the same mistakes twice." Mario sets his mug down. "I don't want to hold onto you too tightly, or push you away if you don't want to go."

"You're not."

"But I could. We could. We did before--sometimes both at once."

Sidney has some more coffee. It doesn't make that last sentence any easier to understand. He gets the "before" well enough that he's not going to ask about it. They haven't given him all the gory details of what went wrong, only a few stories of terrible days and great days, here and there. "How did you do that?"

"Maybe not at the same time, but first one, then the other." Mario shakes his head. "On the same day, sometimes."

"Did you talk about it?" Sidney asks.

Mario laughs. "God, no."

Sidney knocks his shoulder against Mario's. "Well, did you try to? Did you stay up for hours working on a contract with subclauses and stipulations?"

"Not even once. Mostly, when we were angry, we had sex."

Hearing that doesn't make him blush anymore. "Did it help?" Sidney tries to remember the last time he got so much as a kiss when anyone was in a bad mood. After losses, sure, but not when they were mad at each other.

"No. Sometimes it was good sex, but it was no way to solve a problem."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd rather fix the problem, then have sex." Sidney leans against Mario. "Or fix the problem, and then not have sex because I have a stupid headache again, but at least if I have to spend the day in the dark, I won't spend it wondering whether there's anything I can do to make things better."

"I'd let you know." Mario puts his arm around Sidney's shoulders.

"So, nothing?"

"Take care of yourself, and have fun Friday night. And don't worry about me too much. I'll let you know if I need something."

"I'll try," Sidney promises.

"For now--" Mario sighs. "Kiss me?"

Sidney smiles at him, says, "Whenever we can," and kisses him for long enough that they can both relax into it.

*

Friday night is great, at least as soon as he gets to Geno's, away from the kids who want to know where he's going--out with a friend--and why he's bringing clothes. They're too old to buy that grown-ups have sleepovers, too. He might get away with, "If I feel awful by the end of the night, I'd rather be ready to crash there than get all the way back," but only because everybody's still paying too much attention to how he's feeling.

Sooner or later he's going to have to find a better excuse, one that doesn't involve drinking too much, and hopefully doesn't mean he has to talk with them about sex.

Ever. 

But once he's there, actually being with Geno is worth any conversations he'd have to have to get out the door. He gets the fifty-cent tour of the house with Jeffrey tagging along at his heels, tail wagging. There's a kitchen, bathroom, downstairs guest room where Geno is sleeping till his knee heals, another bathroom in case, and a living room with a couch that looks big enough for even Geno to sleep on, maybe even with company. There's a den somewhere and a family room, whatever that means for a guy who lives by himself. Once they hit the couch, Sidney's too busy kissing Geno to wonder .

It's everything he's been looking forward to right up until there's a cold nose and warm breath on the back of his neck, and when he breaks the kiss off, Jeffrey licks his cheek. Sidney makes a face and Geno laughs at him, or maybe at the dog. He says something in Russian with Jeffrey's name in it, and Jeffrey gets off the couch.

"Can I put him out? Or in the kitchen? Or--anywhere?" Sidney asks.

"We give him couch, go to bed, yes?"

"Fine. Let me wash my face first."

"Bathroom is--"

"Yeah, I remember." Sidney shuts the door in Jeffrey's face and scrubs his cheek off, annoyed at himself for how annoyed he is at a dog for acting like a dog. Geno's not in the hallway outside the bathroom when he opens the door again, and the bedroom door is shut. "Are you in there?" Sidney asks.

That gets him Jeffrey, bouncing down the hall towards him.

"Yes. Keep dog out."

"Good idea," Sidney says. He can't explain to Jeffrey that he's not cleared for contact yet. All he can do is maneuver around so the dog can't get in the door, but Sidney can.

Then he sees Geno, spread out naked on the bed and barely manages to get the door shut before Jeffrey noses his way in. "Hi," Geno says.

"That was fast," Sidney says. He can hear Jeffrey's paws on the tiled hall outside, ticking away from them.

"Sweatpants. I have practice." Geno tucks his hands behind his head and grins at him.

Sidney looks at the long lines of his body, the comfortable way he's posing, and wants to touch him everywhere at once.

Taking off his clothes in Geno's bedroom is obviously nothing like getting undressed in the locker room--he's aware every second of the way Geno is watching him--and is strangely unlike getting undressed at home with someone else watching. Sidney's more conscious than normal of the muscle mass he's lost and the extra weight he's carrying because he can't burn it all off with exercise. "It's been a shitty winter," he says defensively, before he takes his shirt off.

"Mine, too, but gets better right now," Geno says, grinning at him.

"What do you want to do first?" Sidney asks. His head isn't quite steady, but he'll push through it. He has plenty of suggestions, but he doesn't want to say something Geno's not interested in or that would strain his knee.

"Want to blow you," Geno says, and glares at his knee. "You sit on my chest?"

"Sure. Where are your condoms?"

"Is okay," Geno says.

It probably is--Sidney's done some reading on disease transmission rates, and he knows what the chances are he's going to catch anything--but rules are rules. "I promised," he says. "So, yeah, it's okay, and I've got some with me if you don't have the right kind."

Geno shakes his head once. "Okay. You promise lots."

"I wanted to." Sidney kneels on the bed by Geno's chest and leans down to kiss him. "And I promise I'll do everything I can to make this good for you, too."

"I know." Geno smiles, but it takes a second too long to look real. "Want to make out?"

"If you do."

"Yes, but." Geno takes a long breath. "You want to be here?"

"Fuck, yes." Sidney wonders what he said wrong and how to make himself clear without giving anything away. "This is about you and me, not anybody else, or I wouldn't be here, with you, right now. I want you, okay?"

"Okay," Geno says, sounding more confident, more like his normal self.

Sidney could spend hours figuring out how Geno responds to different kisses and different touches, cataloguing the sounds he makes when he wants more or something a little bit different, and memorizing the way Geno says his name, depending on what he wants. It's better than a movie. He's not sure it counts as a date if they don't go anywhere except bed, but he's not going to complain. Or tell anyone else that it's not really a date.

He gets dizzy when Geno's blowing him, and he can't tell whether it's because he's too turned on, or because there's something actually wrong. Once he braces his hands on the wall over the head of the bed, the dizziness passes and he can make his eyes focus again. "God, that feels good," Sidney says, in case he's been quiet long enough that Geno's worried. He touches the corner of Geno's mouth where his lips stretch around Sidney's dick, flushed redder than normal with kissing and sucking.

Geno groans and pulls him in deeper, which makes heat sizzle down Sidney's spine. He makes himself keep his eyes open so he can remember exactly where he is, who he's with, and that he has to be careful not to push too hard or take anything for granted. Sidney's too used to people who are used to him. Geno has to show him what the right speed is, what the right depth is, because he won't let himself guess. He wants everything all at once, and he wants too much.

He says, "Fuck, I can't--" and when Geno lets his hips go, "Don't stop, it's good, it's--fuck--"

Geno makes another choked-off sound and sucks him harder, hard enough to make Sidney come, too hard and fast to keep his eyes open for it, to do anything other than feel it, and then kneel up and let Geno breathe. "Thanks," Sidney says, lying next to Geno and putting his arm around him. "Give me a minute, okay?"

"Your head?" Geno asks, and Sidney can hear his frown.

"I'm okay. Just--" he waves his hand. "Need a break."

Geno makes a grumbling noise. "Don't have to--"

Sidney smacks his shoulder. "I want to. Whatever I'm up for, anyway." He considers the possibilities, feeling out his energy level. "I don't think I can ride you right now, unless you really want it."

"Fuck," Geno says, and he sounds impressed. "Next time?"

"We can try." Sidney adjusts the pillow under his head. "It might be easier if you don't get me off first."

"Next time, say earlier," Geno says.

"That's not how it usually works."

Geno is quiet for a second before he asks, "You do that lots?"

"Some, anyway." Sidney kisses him and sits up. "Let me get cleaned up and I'll jerk you off."

"Okay," Geno says.

Sidney gets him off slowly, making out with him, then talking him through it. He's getting better at being able to say things like, "I really want to fuck you," out loud. He used to feel like a perverted idiot trying to have phone sex, but he's gotten a lot of practice in his occasionally-long-distance relationship. Geno shivers under his hand, and at his words. The way he looks, the ways he doesn't try to hide what he's feeling, make Sidney need to kiss him again and again. "Don't thrust up, you'll hurt your knee. Just let me. There."

Geno says, his voice breathy, "Not easy, you talk like that."

"I know, I know." Sidney gives in and kisses him. "I mean, I want you to fuck me, too, as soon as we can, and that's probably easier if you can hold still enough and let me do all the work. But God, I want you."

"I try." Geno says something that sounds like a curse in Russian, even more than normal Russian sounds like cursing, and his stomach muscles tense.

"You're doing great. But--fuck, yeah, bite your lip again. I want to see your face look like that when I'm inside you."

Geno closes his eyes as if he's in pain and makes a low, helpless noise that's nothing but pleasure. "You not tell me you're evil."

Sidney laughs and pumps him a little faster. "Because I want to fuck you?"

"You--" Geno shakes his head, half-smiling. "Yes."

"Do you want me to?" Sidney asks, hoping he's not taking the fantasy somewhere Geno doesn't like.

"Yes, fuck," Geno says, opening his eyes and staring at Sidney for a second before he focuses. "Yes."

Sidney kisses him again. "I want to take it so slow the first time. Find everything that makes you shake."

"Please--" Geno's voice is getting rougher.

"You feel so fucking good." Sidney squeezes him and speeds up. "I want to know how to make you yell for me--"

Geno moans, nowhere close to a yell.

"--the way you do when you score."

Geno comes in his hand, his eyes squeezed shut, his muscles tense with the strain of wanting to move and not being able to.

"Soon," Sidney says, rubbing at the lines on Geno's forehead until they smooth out.

"Fuck," Geno says, half a word, half letting all his breath out at once. "You do that a lot," he says, and this time it's not a question.

Sidney reaches for the tissues. "What, jerk off? Yeah, me and everybody else."

"No." Geno makes a frustrated noise. "Talk like that."

"It's pretty much the only thing I've been able to do since--you know." Sidney sighs. "I can push it sometimes, but I'll be feeling it tomorrow."

"I can't fuck either," Geno says, patting his own thigh. "I don't talk like that. Not English, not in Russian."

Sidney can feel his face heating up. "Sorry, I didn't think you wanted me to stop."

"No. No--" Geno takes the box of tissues out of his hand and grabs a clot of them, frowning at them and at himself, and maybe at Sidney, too. "Don't stop. Was great. Just--" he shakes his head. "Not what I think you do." 

"I do a lot of things," Sidney says.

Geno laughs quietly. "Yeah? What you never ever do?"

"Oh, come on." Sidney makes a face at him. "Don't tell me you were dumb enough to play that game with Max."

"Once," Geno says. "And once with Sasha. He lost," he adds smugly.

"I bet he did." The prospect of playing "Never Have I Ever" against Alex Ovechkin makes Sidney laugh right along with Geno. Sidney can rarely tell how much of Alex's swaggering is real, and how much of it is him playing a role. "If we're going to play that game, we should have dinner first. And I can't answer your questions yet."

"I know." Geno sighs, then moves so he can sit up. "I want to know what else you do. Not who with. Yet."

Despite that, the first Never Geno starts with after dinner, when they're on the couch with a bottle of vodka between them--"Not best, good enough for pretend drink"--and cranberry juice for the actual shots because neither of them should drink on their medications, "I never date more than one person at once."

Sidney puts his feet up on the coffee table and holds up his glass, checking the level without drinking any. "Cool. Me neither."

Geno frowns at him. "You do."

"This isn't really dating, this is hanging out." Sidney shrugs. "And I'm not dating anyone else. That's really not dating."

"Not fair."

"If you want real answers, you have to be specific." Sidney decides to start with the easy ones and wait to ask harder things until he's finished his first shot. "Never have I ever played for the KHL."

Geno takes a tiny sip. "Garbage goal."

"Every point counts."

Geno narrows his eyes and Sidney braces himself for something really filthy. "I never have sex with two guys at once."

"You know, this stuff smells great." Sidney sniffs the cranberry juice. It's nowhere near as nice as the vodka would be. "Too bad I'm not going to drink any of it. Never have I ever had sex with two girls at once."

Geno has another sip. "I never have sex with a guy, and a girl, at same time."

Sidney drinks a little more than he intends to, and the sourness of the juice gives him an excuse to cough and try to hide how much he wants to laugh at himself. "You should try it sometime. It's fun." If this is the line of questions Geno's investigating, Sidney's reluctantly glad Oksana was married when Geno met her. That would be an awkward one to bring up. "Never have I ever dated two girls at once."

"Not a date," Geno says triumphantly. "Just fucking." After a moment's pause, he says, "I never date a guy more than a month."

The sweet-sour tang of the juice doesn't distract Sidney from the cold knot in his stomach. That doesn't sound good, and it doesn't make Geno sound trustworthy even though he is. "Never have I ever. Um. Dumped someone."

"Fuck," Geno says, and drinks. "They all want you to leave first?"

"I told you, no questions." Sidney wipes the rim of his glass with his finger and licks a drop of juice off of it to keep himself from looking at Geno's face.

"This is questions. I never fuck guy in dress."

Sidney tries to picture either Jack or Mario in a dress and has to set his shot glass down so he won't spill it on himself while he giggles. "God, that would be--no. Me neither."

"Then I leave it in closet," Geno says, straight-faced for all of two seconds before he's giggling, too.

"I'd give it a try if you wanted," Sidney says. The thought isn't doing anything special for him, but he's been wrong before. "But--my turn. Never have I ever had sex in Russia."

"Asshole." Geno has another sip and taps his fingers against his glass, thinking. "I never lock myself out of room in swimsuit and pretend is prank."

Sidney rolls his eyes to cover up how much the memory makes him grin, and drinks. "Someday Flower's going to get over that."

"He have nightmares," Geno says, shaking his head. "Wake up, think Mario going to kill him. He cries."

"He does not." Sidney leans over and kisses Geno's cheek, still laughing. "I really like you."

Geno turns to kiss him back. "Like you, too."

"Good, because it's my turn again. Never have I ever, hm." He thinks about it.

"That many things?" Geno asks, raising his eyebrows.

"There are billions of things, but I'm trying to get you. Never have I ever, ever been dumb enough to play this game with Ovechkin."

Geno scowls at him. "You dirty cheater."

"Drink up."

Geno drinks barely anything, but he lifts the glass and wets his lips with pink juice, at least. "I never talk dirty in bed in English."

"You can practice on me," Sidney says, and raises his glass in a toast before he sips. "Never have I ever talked dirty in bed in Russian, or--stop looking at me like that--French. See, two for one."

"Still cheap." Geno swears at him in French, grinning through it, and drinks. "I never have sex in pool."

Sidney stares at him and tries not to look too pitying. "Really?"

Geno clucks his tongue behind his teeth. "So disgusting! I tell Mario."

The only way to cover the blush Sidney can feel growing in his cheeks is to finish his shot and pretend he's having another coughing fit. "Don't," he suggests, when he's sure he's bright red and his voice is hoarse. "Isn't that one of the rules of the game? What happens in drinking games stays in drinking games?"

"We not say that," Geno says, grinning. He pats Sidney's knee. "But I not tell. Have more juice."

"This would be much easier with vodka. But, yes, all right. Never have I ever had sex in my parents' house."

Geno drinks. His shot is almost gone, too. "We stop?"

Sidney fills his glass half-full of juice. "When you're done, sure."

"We terrible at this game."

"I'm okay with that."

"Me, too. I never date someone five years younger than me."

Sidney swirls the juice like it's wine and wonders who Geno's thinking of. "Okay, me neither. Probably just as well. Never have I ever--" If the game is almost over, there are some questions he wants an answer to. "Never have I ever kissed anybody on the Capitals."

"I was right. You evil, very evil." Geno sips again.

"Should I specify what kind of kissing I mean?" Sidney asks.

"No." Geno waves his finger. "No. All kissing is kissing, question over."

If Sidney had phrased that one as "been kissed by anybody on the Capitals," he wouldn't have been able to use it, in the broadest sense of kissing. He wants more information, but it will have to wait until he's not keeping secrets of his own. "Okay, the question's over."

"Not as fun if you're not drunk," Geno says.

"Sure, but you can still find things out if you really want to."

"Not today," Geno says, and drinks the last of his shot. That's kind of like cheating, but Geno let Sidney cheat, too. He can't start complaining now.

"Do you want to watch a movie after all?" Sidney asks. "It's not that late."

"Okay," Geno says. "What?"

They end up watching an ancient Marx Brothers film, which is just about as funny to Geno as it is to Sidney. Every few minutes, Sidney glances at him and grins, and if Geno was bored, he'd suggest they should turn off the movie and kiss for a while, or maybe have sex again. Sitting with him almost like they've been doing since he got hurt, except closer, is at least as nice.

When the movie's over, Geno says, "I call parents tomorrow morning."

Sidney says, "Okay," and wonders whether that means he's supposed to go home, or just be ready to hide when Geno's on the phone.

"I tell them. They want to talk to you."

It's too late to make up a Saturday morning commitment, but Sidney's tempted anyway. He's not sure what to say to Geno's parents, other than "Hello," and "I'm really sorry I haven't learned any more Russian than the last time you visited." "Is it okay if I spend the night?" he asks.

Geno blinks. "Yes."

"Then I'll talk to them tomorrow," Sidney says, and Geno's expression clears. "But, um, I should probably sleep on the couch or something, so I don't knock into your knee or anything."

"More bedrooms upstairs," Geno says. "Use mine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. First door on left." Geno shakes his head. "Not making you sleep on couch."

"I'd rather share with you, but no way do I want you to talk to your parents tomorrow looking like I kept you up all night."

Geno smirks at him. "No?"

"I don't have that kind of stamina right now." Sidney sighs. "Soon. They keep telling me, soon. It's been more than a month and every time I leave the house I feel like I'm taking a risk."

"Soon," Geno says, and kisses him, not starting anything in particular, just a light brush of lips on lips. "Time to sleep?"

"I think so."

Borrowing Geno's bed isn't like staying in a hotel. For one thing, he has to chase Jeffrey off of it and shut him out. The bed smells like dust, dog, and Geno's soap. It would be better if Sidney wasn't alone with his thoughts and worrying about what Geno's parents might say tomorrow. It's hardly the worst place he's ever slept, and he drops off before too long.

Sidney is awake early enough to make them both breakfast, so when Geno comes into the kitchen, Jeffrey trotting behind him, Sidney can say, "Good morning," and give him a plate of eggs and toast. The bread is a whole-grain kind so dark and textured it looks like the people making it forgot to put in any flour.

"Morning," Geno says. "Thanks."

They don't usually talk much over breakfast on the road. Apparently that's true for mornings after, too. Sidney gets them both refills of their coffee and is about to ask when he should leave when Geno checks the clock on the wall and says, "Call parents now?"

Sidney takes a deep breath. "Okay, if you're ready."

"Yes. You?"

"As I'll ever be."

"Okay. I tell you when." Geno logs into Skype with Sidney sitting around the corner of the desk in the living room, out of the camera's range. Geno and his parents talk a little bit--Sidney feels guilty that he can't understand a single word other than "Yes" and "No" here and there--and then Geno says his name.

His parents sound excited, and not angry at all. There's some more talking, and then Geno says, "Sid? Come talk."

Sidney moves his chair so he can see the screen and Geno's parents can see him. "Hello," he says, feeling awkward as hell and wondering how Geno manages to get by as well as he does if any of his conversations in English feel this weird. "I, um," but when he falters, there are years of practice at talking to people about nothing in particular right there. "You're looking very well."

Geno says something, probably translating this. Then his mom starts talking and doesn't stop for what feels like a long time. Maybe Russian uses more words than English to say the same thing, but whatever she's saying, she has a lot of it to say, and she sounds intent. Partway through, Geno starts looking ashamed and Sidney wants to fix that, whatever it takes. He clenches his hands into fists in his lap where she can't see.

When she's finally done, Geno sighs. "She say, she is fine, they are fine. And--" Geno winces. "And she say you look horrible, I not take care of you. I bad boyfriend."

Sidney frowns at him. "No, you're not. It's not your fault. It's not anybody's fault, and if it was, it definitely wouldn't be your fault. If you managed to magically fix me after having sex with me twice, you'd be wasting yourself on the ice."

Geno smiles at this and tells his parents some version of it. They laugh at whatever it is he says. Sidney hopes he leaves out the part about how many times they've had sex.

Geno's dad asks a question and Geno answers it, then turns to Sidney, looking less frustrated. "He say good you make me breakfast, bad I not make you breakfast. No good answers. At least we broken together."

Sidney grins at Geno's dad. "Tell him we take care of each other."

Geno relays that, probably, because his dad nods and smiles. Then his mom starts talking again and it takes her a while to wind down.

Geno's version is obviously missing parts because he says, "She say she send recipes, we cook good food, we get better faster."

"She knows we have people who are actually paid to monitor what we're eating, right?" Sidney asks.

"She think they not as good at job as mothers."

"Okay." Sidney shakes his head, but just a little bit, and makes sure he's still smiling. He's not going to start an argument with Geno's mom over Skype. "Don't you already have her recipes?"

"Some," Geno says.

His mom asks a question and he answers her, then tells Sidney, "She want to know when you move into your house."

"I don't know yet," Sidney says, and then holds up his hand when Geno starts talking. "Actually, I was thinking about getting a different one. One that's easier to get around when you're injured." He hasn't gotten anywhere near that far in planning, but it sounds reasonable.

And it makes Geno's mom smile and Geno glance at him with a sheepish look. "She say you good boyfriend. Smart. Planning ahead. I lucky."

Sidney feels himself blush. "Thank her for me?"

"Yes." Geno says something else, then pats Sidney's knee under the camera line when his dad starts talking. "They want tell me about cousins and cousin babies. You not need listen."

It has to be a lot easier for Geno to talk to them without translating everything, and even to live up to being a "good boyfriend," Sidney doesn't need to act like he cares about all of Geno's cousins and their kids yet. "Okay," he says. "I'll go schedule my ride home."

"Okay," Geno says.

Sidney waves to Geno's parents, who wave back, and goes into the kitchen so he can make a phone call.

Sidney thinks he's acting exactly the way he normally does all the way home after he kisses Geno goodbye. He's sure there's nothing weird about the way he's smiling when he says hello to everybody. Nathalie smiles at him too knowingly, though, so he must be doing something wrong. "Did you have a good visit?" she asks.

It's easier to use that word than "date," especially because Stephanie and Alexa are right there, playing a board game in the living room. "Yeah, it was fun," Sidney says.

"You didn't have too much fun, did you?" Stephanie asks him, pretending to study his face. "Didn't play any exciting games, did you?"

Sidney giggles, because he's never going to tell Stephanie about drinking games, and says, "No," and ignores Nathalie's expression as best he can. He might have to explain later.

"Are you sure?" Stephanie asks.

"Neither of us can play any real games right now, you know that."

"Mm-hm." Stephanie frowns at him harder. "Did you remember that?"

"Yes," Sidney says, and uses one of the official lines on her. "We wouldn't knowingly do anything that could jeopardize our recovery."

"Okay," she says after another moment. She knows a soundbite when she hears it, and it makes her smile. "Well, if it wasn't exciting, at least it wasn't terrible."

"We sat around and watched old movies," Sidney says, so she'll stop caring. "In black and white."

"Ugh," Alexa says. "Why?"

"Because we're old and boring," Sidney says.

Nathalie laughs. "I doubt that. Although the things you choose to watch here aren't always thrilling. The only thing that could possibly be more boring than fishing is watching someone else fish."

"It's soothing," Sidney says.

"Not for the fish," Nathalie says.

Alexa shakes her head and gives up on him, and she and Stephanie go back to their game.

Nathalie asks, "Did you have lunch before you left?"

"No. What are we making?"

Mario is in his office for the rest of the morning. He looks up from his computer when Sidney brings him lunch and says, "You didn't have to do that."

"I didn't get a chance to tell you I was home," Sidney says, setting the tray on the desk. "I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone."

"Thank you," Mario says, more warmly than the lunch alone deserves.

"You're welcome," Sidney says. "Are you okay? I mean, with--everything?"

"Yes. Close the door."

As soon as Sidney pulls it shut, Mario hugs him, studying his face as if he might have changed overnight. "I'm okay," Sidney promises him. "Nothing bad happened, nothing at all."

"And you still want to be here?" Mario asks, his voice almost a whisper.

Sidney kisses him hard and fast. "Yes, damn it. What's it going to take for you to believe me?"

"Practice."

"Then I'll tell you again," Sidney says, and pulls him down for another kiss.

*

Things work better with Geno than Mario is afraid of, and almost as well as Sidney could have hoped. They fit into each others' lives because they've already been there. He doesn't spend all his time at Geno's, and Geno doesn't spend all his time visiting, either, but after a few weeks they're together more than they're not.

The weeks blur together until the playoffs start. Mario is home and not home at strange times, and Sidney can barely watch the games without feeling like an asshole for not being there. His doctors want him to stay away from crowds. It's not the same on the couch, with or without company, whether he's got someone on the phone watching with him or not.

He almost always watches with Geno, though. The days when they only text or email feel empty, whatever else is going on. Geno doesn't like talking on the phone, and it feels weird to Skype with him when he's not that far away.

So when Geno calls at one-thirty in the afternoon on a Friday, Sidney stops exercising immediately and answers it. "Hi, what's up?"

"What you tell Mario?" Geno asks, a little too loudly, his accent thicker than normal.

"What did I tell him about what?" Sidney asks, trying to remember if he's said anything important about Geno recently. Only that he's been wonderful, that they made dinner for each other a few times, and that he hopes things keep going as well as they have been.

"Us, you, me, us," Geno says. "You tell him something."

"Nothing bad," Sidney says, wishing he had a recording of his last conversations with Mario so he could double-check that he was smiling the right amount, just enough, not too much. "There's nothing bad to tell him."

"He--" Geno takes a quick breath. "I eat lunch with him."

"Huh, really? He said he had a meeting." Sidney wipes the sweat off his face and starts looking for Nathalie.

"He talk about you. About me. About--us." Geno sounds like it was the worst conversation he's ever had.

"What did he say?" Sidney asks, and sticks his head into the kitchen. Nathalie isn't there.

"Things!"

"Like what?"

"He say--" Geno takes another breath. "You important to future of team. More than just hockey player. I important too, but." He stops.

Sidney sits down at the dining room table, his heart pounding in his ears. That sounds ominous. "But what? Of course you're important. You're amazing."

"But--he not say what. But he worry. But he know, we important each other. He say, be careful." Geno clears his throat. "He mad at me?"

"No?" Sidney says, without as much conviction as he wants. "No," he says again. "There's no reason he should be."

"He say I come over, have dinner tomorrow."

"I don't think he's going to poison your soup or anything," Sidney says.

Geno laughs once, bitterly. "Maybe."

"Was there anything else?"

"All lunch he talk. But he not listen." Geno sucks his teeth. "How I healing? Yes, good. I talk to you? Yes, good. I happy here? Yes, good. I have nice house? Yes, good. I want move? No, good. I ready to skate in fall? Yes, good. I think you happy? Yes, good."

Sidney rubs his eyes, trying to keep track of all of this and fill in the words Geno leaves out. "Okay. What was he worried about?"

"You? Me? He not say."

"There's no new reason he should be worried about either of us." Sidney gets up again and starts for the stairs. "Did he say what was on his mind?"

"No. He look weird. He--what is word. Twitch. Fingers."

Sidney stops partway up the stairs, trying to figure out what the word could possibly be. "He did what?"

"Move a lot? Just hands," Geno says.

Mario doesn't fidget in public, ever. It's one of the things he's practiced enough that he doesn't have to think about it anymore. "I'll talk to him," Sidney promises. "Tonight. And I'll text you if I figure anything out, okay?"

"Ask why he mad."

"I will." Sidney checks Mario's office and finds Nathalie at last. She has several file folders open in front of her on the desk. "I'll be in touch, okay?"

"Soon," Geno says.

"Soon, yeah. Bye." Sidney hangs up. "Hi."

Nathalie says, "It's going to be all right," before he can ask if she has any idea what's going on.

"What the hell is he doing?" Sidney asks. Two of the folders are copies of the personal contracts. His throat closes up. "And what are you doing with those? You're not going to--" he has to swallow before he can talk, and he leans on the desk in case she says yes, because the world is spinning "--to throw me out?"

"Of course not." Nathalie gets up and comes around the desk to hug him. "You're as white as a sheet. Sit down, right here." She helps him ease down onto the floor until they're both leaning against the desk and he has his ear pressed against her collarbone.

"I'm not leaving," Sidney says.

"No, you're absolutely not. I'd chase after you and make you come home. What did Geno say?"

"A lot of things. Mostly that Mario is mad, and worried about Geno, or about me, or about us."

Nathalie sighs and strokes his hair. "He's much more confident that things will work out well than he was when you started seeing Geno. He must have said things all wrong."

"Well, maybe he can fix it tomorrow, if I can convince Geno to accept the invitation."

"You'd better," Nathalie says. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get all the kids out of the house for one evening?"

Sidney counts to ten before he asks, "What's going on?" so he can be sure he won't yell the question.

"Geno is coming over for dinner tomorrow and we'll tell him about the contract. Unless you think it's a bad idea."

Sidney wants to celebrate the way he would after a game-winning goal, but he's still kind of dizzy. "No, it's a good idea. It's a great idea. Why didn't you say something? I mean, other than letting Mario scare the fuck out of Geno or whatever he did?"

"I thought he'd handle the situation better than he apparently did," Nathalie says dryly.

"What were you hoping for?"

"That whatever Geno said, it would be enough to convince us that he's serious about you, despite the secret he knows you're keeping. And it was, from what Mario told me. That's a big piece of the puzzle, along with everything you've been saying and everything we know about him."

Sidney closes his eyes. "That's not surprising."

"No," she agrees. "But we couldn't ask you to talk to him about it."

"Why not? I haven't lied to you about any of it. I wouldn't. You know that."

"You might see what you hoped to see instead of what's there," she says. "Not that Mario is the most objective person here, either, but at least he's less optimistic than you are. I trust his judgment."

"So did I until he scared the hell out of Geno." Sidney sits up and frowns at her. "You could've told me this was going to happen, at least. I would've let Geno know everything was okay."

"How, exactly?" Nathalie asks.

"I don't know, but I would've come up with something. This isn't the best way to start this discussion, is it? 'Sorry about Mario freaking you out, he was just getting really possessive but that's kind of normal.'" Sidney stands, bracing his hand on the desk, and offers her a hand up once the dizziness subsides. "I don't think that's going to help." 

Nathalie takes his hand and pats his shoulder when she's on her feet, too. "I think you'd better talk to Mario about it."

"I will, as soon as he's home."

That doesn't happen until six-o'clock, which is just in time for dinner. The kids need things and are basically everywhere at once, which is pretty much par for the course but much more annoying than normal. All Sidney wants to do is get Mario alone for five minutes--or maybe ten, depending on how long it takes--and ask him what the hell he was thinking and why he was such a jerk. Either Mario knows that, or it's just a bad day, because first Lauren needs to talk to him for two hours straight about college and then Austin has a bunch of questions about a school trip.

Sidney gives up and says, "I'm exhausted, sorry," when Stephanie tries to get him to help her with something or other. He's not tired at all, but he doesn't have any more honest politeness and she deserves better than automatic responses. He shuts himself in his temporary bedroom and watches TSN, and also texts Mario, _I need to talk to you before dinner tomorrow._

It's forty-one minutes before Mario writes back, _Usual time_?

Sidney wants to write, "No, now," but he can wait. _Fine. Downstairs._

Mario sends him, _See you then_.

Whatever has happened in sports, Sidney isn't aware of the program changing or the commercials. Instead, he texts Geno with, _I think everything is OK. Come for dinner._

Geno writes back, _I need backup? bring d men? kidding )))_

The more people who are at this dinner, the more complicated it will be, and it's already shaping up to be a mess if it's anything like Geno's lunch. _Bring red wine_ , Sidney sends him, and then after a little thought, he picks out the right bottle, not too fancy, not too cheap, one of Nathalie's favorites. He gives Geno the details.

 _got it_ Geno writes, and after a pause, _what happen with m?_

Sidney sighs. _Tell you tmrw._

One way or another, he'll be able to explain more things to Geno than he has before.

Sidney is half-asleep and then some, fully dressed on top of the covers, when there's a tap on his door. He drags himself back to consciousness and says, "Come in."

"Sorry it took me so long," Mario says. He looks exhausted, like he's spent the whole day at the office and then another several hours dealing with the kids. On any other day, Sidney would tell him it could wait, but he's the one who pushed the timing of this. "What's up?"

"What did you say to Geno?" Sidney asks, careful to keep his voice down, but aware that it's not the most pleasant tone of voice he's ever used.

"That I was glad he wanted to stay with the Pens, and you seem to be good for each other," Mario says, frowning a little like it was days ago and not hours. "I asked him how things were going, and he said fine, apart from his injury."

"That's not what you said." Sidney frowns back at him.

"It's certainly what I meant to say, and I didn't say anything significantly different from that. I might have asked how his family is doing." Mario folds his arms. "And maybe his house. Why, what did he tell you?"

Sidney tries to remember what Geno had said, exactly, and what he'd tried to get across in his panicked tone. "He thought you were angry with him and worried about him--and me. And the two of us, together."

"How did he get that out of 'You seem to be good for each other'?" Mario asks, looking honestly blank. "That one I know I said in just about those words because I thought about the best way to phrase it."

"Were you glaring at him?" Sidney asks.

"No, why would I? I'm not angry at him, or at anyone." For someone who says he's not angry, Mario's frown is impressive.

"Does your back hurt?"

"No more than usual, and it didn't then, either." Mario shrugs slightly, his shoulders barely moving.

"You look like you tweaked it again."

"I'm fine," Mario says. He looks about as fine as Sidney felt when he got off the phone with Geno, and at least as likely to fall over.

Sidney pats the bed next to himself. "If your back is okay, come here for a minute."

"No, thank you."

"Please?"

Mario sighs and crosses the room, then sits on the very edge of the bed. He looks like he's in agony, but he doesn't move like it's his back this time. "Better?"

"Not really." Sidney puts a hand on his shoulder and Mario tenses. "Sorry I was so upset."

"It's all right," Mario says, his voice flat.

"Can I hug you?"

"If you want to."

Sidney moves to sit next to him and puts his arm around Mario's waist. It doesn't seem to help at all. "I pretty much always want to. It's just a question of when I can get away with it."

Mario sighs. "It's a big day tomorrow. I should let you sleep."

"Are you mad at me, and not Geno?" Sidney asks.

It takes a lot longer for Mario to say, "I'm not mad at either of you," than Sidney's expecting, especially if it's true.

"Okay," Sidney says, and lets the word hang there. "Then what did I do wrong?"

"Nothing. God--" Mario hugs him tightly and takes a long, shuddery breath when Sidney hugs him back. "Okay," he admits, his face buried in Sidney's hair, "if I got to choose, you wouldn't have a crush on Geno, but you could have a crush on someone much less pleasant and interesting." His voice sounds hoarse, but then he's been talking to people all day and all night.

"I kind of figured that part out," Sidney says. "But that doesn't have anything to do with how I feel about you. It never has."

He can feel Mario take another shaky breath and let it out again. "I got that, eventually."

"Eventually, like eventually you believed me when I said I wasn't moving out unless you asked me to?"

After a moment, Mario says, "It was a much shorter time-frame the second time."

"Months instead of years?" Sidney asks, biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing.

"Have you been seeing him for months now?"

"Yes. Well, almost two months, but we have known each other for years, and you know him, too."

"Then yes. Almost two months." Mario sighs again, and this time he gets a little less tense. "Did I scare him that much?"

Sidney hisses through his teeth. "I don't think he thought you were going to trade him, but he asked whether you'd poison him at dinner tomorrow."

"He did not." Mario lets him go and frowns at him. "You're fucking with me."

Sidney spreads his hands. "Whatever you said, and however you said it, you freaked him the hell out."

"He's not actually afraid I'd--shit." Mario pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'll apologize tomorrow, I promise. I wasn't trying to scare him."

"What do you want me to do if you start scaring him by mistake at dinner?" Sidney asks. "One of my aunts gets kind of silly when she drinks, and my mother has permission to grab her by the elbow and drag her away from conversations if she starts saying the wrong thing."

"That might be a little too obvious."

"Probably, but it would be better than telling him we're basically married while you're giving him a death glare."

"I wasn't," Mario protests.

"I believe you didn't do it on purpose." Sidney kisses him. "It'll be okay. We can tell him what's going on, you can apologize for being grumpy, and everything will be fine."

Mario hugs him again. "I wasn't grumpy, either." 

"Then what were you?"

That seems to be one of the hardest questions Sidney has ever come up with. He waits for an answer, his head on Mario's shoulder, for a long enough time that if he didn't know better he'd think Mario had fallen asleep, leaning on him. He's not breathing the way he does when he's asleep, though, so he's probably just thinking. After what feels like forever, the way minutes stretch out in the penalty box, Mario says, "I thought--maybe I hoped--that you might be wrong about him. I wanted you to be, so I could come home and tell you things just weren't going to work out, that you had to break up with him."

There's nothing to that effect in the contract short of finding out that someone has done something unethical or illegal. Sidney says, "But I'm not wrong."

"No." Mario rubs his shoulder in a small circle, absent-mindedly. "It would be so much easier if you were, but you have good taste."

"I know." Sidney knocks their knees together gently.

"And tomorrow, you're--no, we're going to tell him the most important secret we have." Mario makes a soft sound that might be a muffled laugh. "I hope we're both right about him."

"We are," Sidney says confidently. "And Nathalie said it was okay, too?"

"Yes. Something to do with rutabaga, she said."

"Yeah." Sidney makes a face at the memory. "I didn't know people could be allergic to rutabagas."

Mario laughs once, but at least it's a real laugh. "Do you have any idea--" he says, and stops.

Sidney waits, hoping that this pause is shorter than the last time it took Mario forever to find the end of his sentence. If it is, it's not much shorter.

"Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am," Mario says.

This year has been horrible so far, but one of the things that's gotten Sidney through it so far is knowing that Mario understands that horrible years happen, and they don't mean everything's over, or that anything is. They mean it's time to gather strength and get ready to work harder. Nobody can get himself back on his feet alone, and neither of them are anything like alone. "I know what you mean," Sidney says. "And we'll be fine tomorrow night, you know, and not because of luck."

"Oh?" Mario asks.

"We don't need luck. We know what we're doing. If you say something wrong, I'll stop you, and if I say something wrong, Nathalie will stop me, and if she's wrong, we'll both make sure it works out."

Mario grins at him, but he looks sad, too. "We could use some luck tomorrow. I don't want Geno to get too upset."

"There's nothing to be upset about," Sidney says.

From the hall, Nathalie says, "Everyone alive in there?" and taps on the door.

"Come in," Sidney says.

"Oh, good, you're still breathing." She comes over to the bed and kisses Mario, then Sidney, and settles in at Sidney's other side, her arm around his shoulders. "So, what's the play tomorrow?"

"Sid says everything will be fine," Mario says. "There's nothing to be upset about, after all."

Nathalie coughs. "Oh?"

"He already knows all the parts that matter," Sidney points out. "He just hasn't put them together. Obviously I live with you, and obviously you're my family. And I'm sleeping with somebody else, and he's okay with that part, too."

"I hope you're right," Nathalie says quietly.

"I'm sure I am, or we'd just have dinner with Geno, like last week, like the other day, like we have been."

*

Getting ready for an important dinner takes most of the day, especially with the kids in and out of the kitchen and everywhere else, trying to get ready to go all the different places they're going. Nathalie has to drive Lauren one direction and Stephanie another, both in the morning, and she leaves Sidney in the kitchen with careful directions on how to set up the marinade and when to punch down the bread dough. Austin wants to help with the marinade, which is fine as long as he doesn't mess up the proportions of garlic and thyme again--and Sidney watches to make sure he doesn't.

"What's the difference between vinegar and balsamic vinegar?" Austin asks as he finishes making the marinade for the beef.

"They taste different, but other than that, I don't know." Sidney checks Nathalie's notes. They have two hours before anything else needs to be done. "Why don't we try them and see what the differences are?"

"Are there other kinds, too?"

For reasons Sidney doesn't entirely understand, the varieties of vinegar the house has are white, red wine, rice wine, apple cider, balsamic, and ume plum. Sidney pulls out a set of small dishes and puts a few drops in each one so they can try them all. "If Alexa's not busy, she might think this was interesting."

"This one doesn't smell like plums at all," Austin says.

"Well, it is vinegar. I'll be back in a minute. Don't eat them all."

"Ew!"

Alexa is working on her math homework in Mario's office while Mario does something on the computer, probably to do with the endless strings of emails he gets. "We're going to taste-test vinegar," Sidney says. "Do you want to try it?"

Alexa wrinkles her nose. "Sure."

"I already know what vinegar tastes like," Mario says.

"Apple cider vinegar?"

"Maybe. Is that what you get when cider goes fizzy in the fridge?"

Sidney shrugs. "It doesn't look fizzy, but it smells kind of like that."

"I'll supervise," Mario says, getting up.

Austin is holding the white vinegar dish and making a face when they all troop into the kitchen. "I tried it and it's nasty," he says. "And they all smell the same now."

"You forgot the crackers," Mario says, and hunts down a box of soda crackers. "Take a bite in between kinds of vinegar and have some water. It'll help."

"Like wine tasting?" Sidney asks.

"Some vinegar is just old wine, so why not?"

So when Nathalie comes home and Austin has a soda cracker in one hand and a little bowl of reddish vinegar in the other, and he's saying, "It's spicy, you know, and sour. But kind of bitter? Not as bitter as the other stuff. What was that word you used, Papa? Piquant?"--it's all Mario's fault in the end.

If they get more giggly over it than they normally would, the kids don't seem to notice that everyone else is on edge. "I don't remember what the plum stuff is for," Nathalie admits after Alexa has tried to pronounce it five different ways and Austin says he'll look up the right way.

"It's not very ummy, I mean yummy," Alexa says.

Mario groans. "That's it. You have homework to finish. Upstairs."

"Do I have to?"

"And the rest of us will finish cooking," Nathalie says.

"We're on schedule," Sidney assures her.

"I'm sure you are, but that means we should start the salad."

"Why are we making so much salad if everybody's visiting their friends?" Austin asks.

Nathalie asks, "Have you ever heard your friends complain about leftovers?"

"Sometimes."

"I know they're a myth around here, but every now and then it's nice not to have to cook or order something in for lunch." Nathalie hands him a bunch of carrots. "Get chopping."

Austin takes a break after the carrots and Nathalie lets him, partially because there's nothing else to do for the salad but the peppers and partially, Sidney thinks, because it's nice to have a quiet kitchen every now and then. "How are you today?" she asks.

"Okay," he says. "A little nervous, but okay."

"Just a little?" Nathalie smiles at him. It looks brittle around the edges.

"Everything will be fine," Sidney says. "And if things go wrong with Geno, I'll still have you."

Nathalie hugs him quickly. "That's true."

"Are you okay?" Sidney asks.

"I don't have much to lose unless it's a catastrophe, so--yes, thank you." She doesn't look as calm as she sounds, especially not when it's time to punch down the dough and she beats it up like it did something mean to her, but Sidney doesn't call her on it.

Once the bread is in the oven and Austin and Alexa are with their friends, there isn't enough to do in the house to keep Sidney's mind off what's coming next. He tries watching old highlights and new highlights, and that works for about fifteen minutes until he hits a series of clips of Geno's best goals.

Then he's wondering what's going to happen, and the only thing he can think of to do other than think about what might happen is to make a concrete plan. He writes down a few notes so that he can get the order right, then finds Mario, who stops playing solitaire on his computer as soon as Sidney comes into the office. "I was thinking," Sidney says, and hands him the game plan. "It should be enough to just tell him, right?"

"Probably," Mario says.

"And if he doesn't get it, you can tell him, too. And Nathalie can." Sidney bites his lip. "He's not dumb. But I don't think he knows all the right words for what we're doing. I mean, I didn't until we started actually trying, and, and Geno--hasn't done anything like this." He considers. "He could have looked things up, but he hasn't started saying things like, 'When did you first know you were polyamorous?' so probably not."

Mario looks slightly spooked, but Sidney is sure he'll be okay. "That's probably just as well."

"Still." Sidney points to plan C, which is under 'Tell him as clearly as possible' and 'Use a diagram.' "Are you up for this one?"

"I want to see the diagram first," Mario says.

It's as straightforward as a diagram gets--four stick figures with lines between them, numbers to tell the boy stick figures apart and one with a stick-figure-girl skirt. Sidney felt kind of silly drawing in the little hearts, but he was aiming for something so obvious Geno would get it even if he was weirded out enough that he couldn't remember any English. 

He's not going to admit to anyone that he likes seeing the little 87 stick figure surrounded by hearts.

"We might have to shred that," Mario says after he's been looking at the diagram for much longer than it should take to figure it all out.

"Or lock it with the contracts," Sidney suggests. It's just a piece of paper, and it's nowhere near the most important one when it comes to making everything real, but he doesn't like the idea of turning it into confetti.

"That would work." Mario clears his throat. "Well. If that doesn't work, we can try plan C."

"Okay." Sidney looks at the list. "I'm not sure what plan D is."

Mario starts to say something, then stops, then starts again. "Convince him not to go anywhere until he calms down enough that he won't be on the phone to the Trib, break out all the liquor, and hope."

"He won't," Sidney says, trying not to picture the fallout if somehow Geno decided it was a good idea to take the issue public. "It's a long way from telling his parents he's dating me to--that--and he won't."

"No, I'm sure he won't." Mario tucks the stick figures behind Sidney's plans. "Did you check with Nathalie, too?"

"Not yet. She was with Alexa."

Nathalie, who's setting the table a good hour and a half early, thinks the stick figures are adorable. "I doubt you'll need plan C, but it's reassuring that you're not so sure this will be perfect."

"It will be fine," Sidney says. If he says it enough, they might believe him.

"Make sure we have enough crushed ice, would you?" Nathalie tucks her hair behind her ear for the third time in a minute. "I don't think I can get through this evening sober."

"Okay. Do you think maybe candles?"

Nathalie says, "Once we're sure everyone's calm, maybe. Are you wearing that?"

"No." Sidney doesn't change for meals, but this one deserves it. The last time Geno was over for dinner, they were both wearing jeans, and so was pretty much everyone else at the table. It's not a jeans night. "Do you need me to help with anything else before I change?"

"No. He'll be here in, what, forty minutes? Go get dressed."

"Are you sure?" Dressing won't take anything like forty minutes, and one more task might help him stop obsessing over dinner.

"Yes." Nathalie pats his cheek. "Everything that can be controlled is under control."

Choosing a suit is easy, even though he's nervous, because the ones for the mid-season don't fit right and that narrows down the choices considerably. Sidney catches himself wondering about which tie to wear, which is dumb since he can only tell some of them apart by looking closely, and even then he doesn't know why anyone else would care.

That leaves him with thirty minutes to stare at the wall, or watch television, or sit in the kitchen and listen to the freshly-baked bread crackle as it cools and try to remember that everything will be okay, one way or the other, no matter what happens.

*

Geno is ten minutes early. He has two bouquets of flowers, the bottle of wine Sidney suggested, and looks like he took at least three showers, and he's wearing one of his end-of-summer suits too. He says, "For you," and offers Sidney one of the bouquets.

"Thanks," Sidney says, taking it automatically. It has huge gold flowers in it and some of the tiny white sprays that people put with roses. Roses are just about the only flower Sidney recognizes on sight, though, so he's not sure what they are. "You really didn't have to, you know."

"Wanted to," Geno says. "Might help."

Sidney lets him in and tugs him down by the shoulder to kiss him. "You're great."

Geno turns his face away, his eyes wide. "Kids?"

"They're all out of the house tonight. It's okay."

"All?"

"Yeah."

"Huh." Geno looks around like he thinks they might have missed one somehow.

Sidney smiles and knows it probably looks about as weak as it feels. "Sometimes miracles happen," he says, and Geno smiles back at him. "We should get these flowers into water."

"Other one for Nathalie," Geno says. The second bouquet is just as big, with pink and orange flowers that go together like a sunrise.

"Nice," Sidney says. "I know where the vases are."

"Hi, Geno," Nathalie says when they go into the kitchen to hunt down vases. She gives him a quick hug. 

Sidney wonders if she knows how tense she sounds.

"I bring flowers," Geno says, and offers her the bouquet. "For you."

She smiles at him and takes them. "Thank you so much. Sidney, could you--"

"Got it," he says, and takes the hand-off.

"It's a good thing we have so many extra places at the table tonight or we wouldn't have space for all those flowers," she says, sounding like she's trying to make a joke.

"Is quiet," Geno says.

"Sometimes a little change is nice." Nathalie opens the refrigerator and pulls out the different mixers that were chilling. "I hate to put a guest to work, but--"

Geno says, "No problem."

"Don't say that until you find out what I'm asking, dear. As soon as the meat is done and resting, I am going to want a margarita, and--Sidney?"

Sidney thinks longingly of being able to take the edge off of his worries by having a drink. He's going to need all his focus, though. "Just juice for me."

"And you can mix yourself whatever you want, or--" Nathalie frowns at goes to one of the cabinets that's high enough and far enough away from the counters that keeping useful things in it would be a pain in the neck. She moves two very large pots, stands on her tiptoes, and pulls down a somewhat dusty bottle of vodka. "Or this, if you'd prefer."

Geno takes it and holds it like it's precious. "Thank you," he says. "Is holiday?"

"Enjoy it," she says. "But take everything out of the kitchen, both of you. Including those beautiful flowers."

"The wine probably needs to breathe, too," Sidney says. Between the two of them, they get the vases, the mixers, and four glasses to the sideboard in the dining room without much trouble.

Geno sets down his vase and empties his hands, then takes hold of Sidney's sleeve and says in his ear, "What happen? Why kids gone? Why best vodka?"

Sidney can only manage a media smile, and not a good one of those, either. "Everything is okay," he says.

"No," Geno says, not letting him go. "Mario mad at me, Nathalie worried, you--weird. What happen?"

"No one is mad at you," Sidney says. "I promise. Look--let's get everybody a drink and talk before dinner."

"Talk about what?"

"I'll go make sure Mario's ready." At least when Sidney says Mario's name, Geno lets him go, and he can make it up the stairs to the right bedroom before the adrenaline starts to wear off. He calls, "Are you dressed yet?" through the door.

Mario looks slightly flushed when he opens the door, and about as calm as Nathalie. He's wearing a suit, too, and fidgeting with his cuffs. He says, "Next time, don't date someone punctual."

"Sorry. Your tie is a little--" It's not actually crooked, but it's nice to have an excuse to touch him and pat it into place. "There."

"At times like this I miss smoking," Mario says, then shakes his head as if he can't believe he said that.

Sidney makes a face at him. "You're not freaked out enough to do something that dumb, are you?"

"No." Mario hugs him tightly and doesn't let go as soon as Sidney expects him to. He sighs into Sidney's hair and says something too soft for Sidney to hear him.

"Sorry, what?" Sidney asks.

Mario backs off enough to straighten his lapels for him. "I love you, and we'll get through this."

Sidney grins and catches his hands. "I know, and yeah, we absolutely will."

"That's all. Ready?" 

"Yeah." Sidney squeezes Mario's hands, lets him go, and checks his cuffs one last time. "Now all I have to do is get down the stairs."

"I'll catch you if you need me to. Come on."

Geno is in the dining room, setting a glass of juice by Sidney's normal place, when they come into the room. He looks up and hesitates like he's doing something wrong, and there is a long, silent moment. "Hey, I found him," Sidney says a little too cheerfully. The tension is getting to him. "What would you like to drink, Mario?"

"I'll just go see if Nathalie needs anything," Mario says, and heads for the kitchen.

Geno says quietly, "See? He mad at me. Tell him I not want move, okay? He listen to you." 

"Have some vodka," Sidney says, and goes into the kitchen right behind Mario.

"Take the salad, Sid," Nathalie says, pushing one of the huge bowls toward him. There's enough greenery there for a whole party of Pens.

"In a second." Sidney glares at Mario. "Calm down. Or--act like you're calm, okay?"

"I'm fine," he says.

Sidney laughs so hard he has to set the salad down on the counter, mostly because he's just as nervous as they are. "If this is what you did to him yesterday, no wonder he thinks you want him dead. Bring the bread and I'll make you a drink."

Hardly any work goes into scotch on the rocks, which is just as well. If Sidney had to put in the effort to make a complicated cocktail while Mario is pretending to smile blandly and Geno is fiddling with the flowers, and then Mario drank it off that fast, he'd be upset as well as worried.

Sidney sighs and gives him another, just in case, before he checks in the kitchen again. "Is everything turned off?"

"Yes," Nathalie says. "The meat has to sit for--"

"Good." Sidney jerks his chin toward the dining room. "If we leave them alone for another minute, I'm afraid Geno's going to try to retire. Let's get this over with."

It's deathly quiet in the dining room, but neither Mario nor Geno looks injured. They're not looking at each other, either. Geno is looking at one of the gold flowers like there's something important about it and Mario has his phone out at the table. That's not allowed for anything but emergencies. This would be a terrible time for an emergency, but when Sidney comes back in, he puts it away, so it can't be that bad, whatever it is.

"Your drink at your seat," Geno says.

"Thank you, Geno," Nathalie says. If she pats Mario's shoulder harder than usual on her way to her chair, Geno probably doesn't notice.

Sidney waits until everybody's sitting, then turns to Geno. He wants to get the discussion over with as fast as possible. When he starts trying to talk, the first thing he says is, "Um. So, Geno."

There is a quiet little thump as someone sets down a glass.

Geno looks like he's ready to bolt as soon as he knows which direction is safe. "Yes?"

"You know how I'm, um, seeing somebody else?" That isn't the phrasing Sidney practiced, but it'll have to do.

"I not know you tell them," Geno says, tilting his head a little toward Mario and Nathalie's side of the table without looking at them. "That what dinner is for?"

"Um, no. They knew before you did, because--" The words get stuck in his throat. "Because it's them. Both of them."

Geno stares at him for a second and then laughs too loudly. "Is good joke." He looks at Nathalie for support. "Funny, yes?"

She says, "No."

The diagram obviously isn't going to help. Sidney leaves it under his plate. "I'm not kidding. We're not kidding."

"No?" Geno asks, his eyes a little glassy. He doesn't look like he's moved in the last minute, even to blink.

"Not at all."

Geno says nothing for a moment, then lowers his voice. "Your head okay?"

"Yes, and that's not--I--help?" Sidney turns to Mario, who looks like he's frozen, then to Nathalie.

When she wants to, she can yell as loudly as anyone on the team, but she can also sound incredibly calm, even soothing. "It's not a joke, Geno. I wouldn't let them play this kind of a joke on anyone."

"But--" Geno says, and shakes his head. "You're not," he says to Sidney.

Sidney pushes his chair back. "Plan C."

"Are you sure this is--" Mario says, but he's getting up even as he protests.

"Sorry, yes," Sidney says.

Sidney has never thought of himself as an exhibitionist. All the times he's ever had sex with someone else watching, it was about all three of them, not just two people showing off for someone else. It's strange enough to kiss Mario in the dining room as it is--they're usually so careful--and the choked noise Geno makes behind him makes him freeze for a second.

He wants to stop and apologize again, to Geno for letting this be as complicated as it is, to Mario for making him do anything uncomfortable, and to Nathalie for the whole tangle of events. He would, except Mario's hand is on the back of his head and it's a little bit easier to go with the kiss. He knows how it should feel, and it's right, and normal, at least until Nathalie clears her throat. 

Sidney is sure his cheeks are bright red when he turns to Geno, and his knees are wobbly. He keeps one hand on Mario's shoulder for balance and because he's not quite ready to let him go. "It's not a joke," he says.

Geno says, "Oh." His eyes are still wide and he has his hands on the edge of the table, doing nothing at all.

"So, that's why I couldn't say anything at first. Sorry. It's pretty complicated," Sidney says.

"To put it mildly," Mario says. "Sit down, Sid."

"And no one's mad, okay? You can tell that now, right?" Sidney asks..

Geno shakes his head slightly. "How long?"

"Four years," Sidney says.

Geno blinks once. "What?"

Holding up four fingers is the best way he can think of to get the point across. "Four years."

"Oh," Geno says, looking blank.

Sidney swallows against the fear in his throat. "And you, you're not going to tell anyone, right?"

Geno blinks at him again. "What?"

Nathalie says, "Have another drink, Geno." 

At least he seems to understand that part. He reaches for his glass and drains it, which makes his cheeks flush red. "Thanks," he says, without looking anywhere near Nathalie. Geno looks like he can't figure out what's going on.

"Sidney, dear, could you get him a refill?" she asks.

He can tell she's trying to deflect him, but Geno's still catching his breath. "Sure," he says, and gets up to take care of it, which takes him a lot longer than it would take Nathalie or Mario. Geno's face is less red by the time he's done.

"Are you okay?" Sidney asks him softly as he hands the drink over. 

"I am fine. How are you?" Geno says. It sounds like a phrase he's practiced over and over again until he can say it without thinking, like, "It was a good game."

Sidney looks at Mario, who's shaking his head, then back at Geno. "Seriously, G, are you okay?"

"Why tell me?" Geno asks.

Real questions are definitely progress. "Why do you think?"

"Because you crazy." Geno glances at Nathalie apologetically. "Not all. Just him."

She looks calmer than she has all day. "Thank you."

Sidney elbows Geno. "That's not why. I had to tell you because--because I love you, and I love them too. It wasn't fair that they knew and you didn't."

"And you crazy," Geno says, but he's unfreezing as he says it, and he reaches for Sidney's hand. "One boyfriend not enough for you?"

Sidney squeezes his fingers and tries not to laugh. "That's not what this is about. I'm not starting a collection."

"Good," Geno says.

"Two are enough?" Mario asks.

The way he's looking at Geno, and the way Geno's straightening up and posturing right back, Sidney's starting to think he didn't plan this enough. "Yes," he says.

Nathalie stands up. "The roast should be well-rested by now. I'll get it."

"Thank you," Sidney says.

Geno sighs. "So you not mad," he says to Mario, hopefully.

"No," Mario says, which isn't all that reassuring, but it will have to do for a start. He looks like he's breathing normally again.

"And dinner is definitely not poisoned," Sidney adds.

"Good," Geno says, and pulls away from Sidney so he can put his face in his hands and laugh.

"Um, Geno?" Sidney asks.

"I'm okay," he says, after a few more giggles. "Just. Can't believe you."

"Plan C was a one-time deal," Mario says, his voice flat.

Geno sits up and puts his hands in his lap, looking like he's going to be on his best behavior for the rest of the night. "Okay. No, I believe, but--is weird."

"Sometimes, yeah," Sidney agrees.

Nathalie comes back with the beef, which has been making the kitchen and dining room smell amazing since it started cooking, and sets it on the table. "Can I get anyone another drink?" she asks.

"Yes, please," Mario says.

"Please," Geno says.

Sidney looks at his juice and misses being able to drink. He doesn't need to, but sometimes it would be nice. The first hard part is over. Now all they have to do are the rest of the hard parts.

Dinner is much more comfortable than it could be, especially when they start talking about hockey instead of about emotions and what to do about them. Hockey is familiar and safe, and it keeps them busy through to dessert. Mario's waving his hands when he talks more than he normally does, and when they've all got a bowl of chocolate mousse, he says, "You're a good kid, Geno. No--sorry. A good man."

Geno turns brick red and stares at his mousse. "Thank you."

Sidney nudges him. "Well, he's right."

"Of course I'm right," Mario says. "Just--you just be careful, all right, you two?"

Nathalie gives Sidney an apologetic look, but he's not sure why she's bothering to be sorry. She says, "They are, dear."

"They'd better be." Mario shakes his head. "No going around breaking each other's hearts."

Sidney wants to kick him under the table but he can't reach. He's blushing, too, but at least Geno's still looking at his dessert. "We'll try not to."

"No breaking hearts," Geno agrees.

"And no--no disclosure, we have those papers ready," Mario says.

Geno looks up, startled. Sidney gives him a "calm down" wave. "The non-disclosure agreements, you mean?"

"Yes. In the office. Four of 'em."

"After dinner, dear," Nathalie says.

"You sign contracts for--relationship?" Geno asks, looking at her, then Mario, then Sidney.

"Yes. Binding on all sides. I'll show you later, okay?" Sidney tries smiling at him.

"How long contract for?" Geno asks.

Mario sighs very loudly.

"It's sort of on the same schedule as the one with the Pens," Sidney says, "but the terms for renewal are, um, different."

Geno says, "Okay," though he still looks a little confused.

"And we can work on one, independently, you and me," Sidney says.

"Show me ones you have first," Geno says.

"Sure."

Nathalie says, "At some point we'll have to talk about scheduling, too."

Sidney stares at her, wondering what he's done wrong. He's been careful to make time for everybody, even though it's complicated. "We've been doing all right, haven't we?"

"For the most part, yes, but it'll be so much easier if we can compare notes." Nathalie smiles at Geno. "Especially if we have an agreement in place first."

Geno says, "Okay, yeah."

"We can start with the framework we have for road trips and go from there. Of course we'll all be flexible, but it's easier with a starting point."

Geno nods. "We work on it."

The way they're looking at each other is as good as a handshake. Once Nathalie starts organizing things, they stay organized. Sidney isn't about to admit that he's afraid of what they could come up with. Whatever the eventual arrangement is, as long as everyone gets what they need, it'll be fine. "Do I get a say in this?" he asks, smiling so they know he's teasing.

"Of course," Nathalie says. "Not the only say, but we need everyone at the bargaining table."

"Right of first refusal, then," Sidney says.

"Yes," she agrees.

Geno asks, "Is joke?"

"No," Sidney says, setting his bowl aside. "Mario, could you get the paperwork from the office? We'll walk you through it, Geno."

Geno agrees to the NDA but asks for time to work on the contract, which makes Mario look kind of nervous. Sidney is on Geno's side there since the contract's much more complicated. It's going to take Geno a while to translate the parts he doesn't understand, and he deserves all the time he needs. They spend some time on it until Lauren gets home, then Stephanie, and it's too late at night to hide in the office and talk.

"I go home soon," Geno says, yawning and resting his elbows on the table. 

Sidney can't tell whether that's an invitation or not. He's too tired to do anything more than fall asleep. "Okay. We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow, then."

Geno smiles at him over the folders he's taking home, stacked on the dining room table next to the flowers he brought. "This still crazy," he says. "Crazy on paper with rules."

"It's been working pretty well for me so far." Sidney shrugs. "If I stopped doing things because someone thought they were crazy, I don't know what I'd be doing with my life, but I wouldn't be here."

"Is good kind of crazy," Geno says. He glances around, making sure no one else is close by. Sidney's least favorite rule so far is that Plan C was an exception under extraordinary circumstances, and whatever he does with Geno has to be just as secret.

He'll go along with it for now, until there's a way to renegotiate.

But at the moment, they're alone, so Geno kisses him. He feels wonderful, like he always does, but not wonderful enough to make up for how stressful the last few days have been.

"We'll start working on the schedule tomorrow, too," Sidney promises. "Tonight--" he has to fight the urge to yawn. "I'm passing out. Sorry."

"We have time."

"Yeah, we will."

*

Geno's first game back on the ice is just an exhibition, opening the season at home. Sidney wants to be down there with him, but he's not ready yet, so he's benchwarming. The last thing he wants to do is push too hard and bench himself for another nine grinding months of recovery. He wouldn't miss the game for anything, even if all he can do is cheer loudly enough that Nathalie taps his shoulder during a break in play and asks if he might be overdoing it. At least he's there yelling for Geno, not stuck on the couch one more time.

"I'll take a nap during the intermissions."

"That would be a trick," Mario says.

Nathalie shakes her head, laughing at him. "I'll tell all the fans who just want to know you're still here that you need to sleep. I'm sure they'll be quiet for you."

"Well, I'll sit down for the intermissions, anyway."

"We'll hold you to that," Mario says. "Literally, if we have to."

Sidney laughs, imagining signing autographs with Mario's hands on his shoulders, making sure he doesn't get out of his chair. "You won't. I know better than that."

He's on his feet again most of the first period, and he's not tired by the first intermission, or the second one, when there are hands to shake and people to talk to, but he keeps his word.

At the end of the game, he's in the locker room with Mario as soon as the guys come off the ice. Geno hugs him, thumping his shoulder with his heavy gloves, and Flower taps his helmet. "Hey, no contact, G."

"Sorry, I forget," Geno says.

Sidney snorts. "Fuck you, Flower, I'm getting better. Hugs don't count as contact anymore."

They probably should, the way Flower hugs him. By the time Duper pats him on the back and shoves him towards Tanger, Sidney's basically a receiving line of one. His suit's going to need a cleaning and he can't stop grinning, no matter how hard Jordy hugs him. He missed them all, even if they are trying their best to beat him up and cover him in second-hand sweat at the same time.

"Hey," Mario says, "Geno, toss me your stick." It doesn't take a stick for him to break into the line and demonstrate how to hug someone gently, like he's teaching little kids how to pet a dog. He doesn't yell in Sidney's ear, either, unlike the rest of them. "You don't even have to hit him, you know. Here, G, you try it."

Geno hugs Sidney carefully for all of two seconds before they're laughing together, and Sidney pounds Geno on the back as hard as he can. "Like that?" Sidney asks.

"No," Mario says, grinning at them. "I give up. You'll just have to practice till you get it right."

"Okay," Geno says, when he gets his breath back. "We try again later." 


End file.
